The Lion in the Sky
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: AU. He runs, but both sides close in fast. But who is he? What power does he hold? Is he the key to victory…or the one who'll bring about their destruction?
1. Runchase

…

_**THE LION IN THE SKY**_

…

Run. That was all he could do. Footsteps pounded after him: heavy, lumbering, but clearly with physical strength, indenting the soft earth as it changed into harsh asphalt. It masked the number of pursuers; he couldn't afford the time to turn a sound and check. And so he kept running, dodging through alleyways, skirting around corners and changing directions so fast only a professional could keep track of him.

He had to move inland; there was no other way. The road on the beach was perhaps a little easier to both flee upon and utilise, but it was too open. Too exposed. And the water carried a threat that wasn't completely neutralised and could still strike upon him in a vengeance.

And so he ran. It was the only thing he could do. Run.

The footsteps followed him, relentlessly pursuing their prey.

He was lucky there was no moon that night, and the weaker lights of the stars were veiled in a thick cloud cover. The darkness made it easier to flee. Easier to hide.

The earth trembled beneath him, but he kept on running. Kept on moving. He couldn't stop. He just _couldn't_.

For a moment, a fleeting breath of life's length, it looked as though the chase would end as it always did. Very rarely over the past few years had he needed to escape them on the front of a full-blown assault…and he would rather it didn't come to that again. The cost of fighting was too great, left him too vulnerable…and some innocent bystander, mostly attracted by the light show as nature's elements clashed, gave too large a price for curiosity and another's witness. But then he ran straight into something solid and fate changed its course again.

…

_**Chapter 1**_

_**Run Chase**_

…

When Kanbara Takuya was first drafted into the LWO, he thought all his dreams had come true. It was every arcade-obsessed teen's dream to hunt down and fight _real_ monsters and save the world, especially when coupled with the relief that he was _not_ about to be hauled off for experimentation like some lab animal when he had snapped his fingers at thirteen to prove a point (which point had rather slipped his mind) and accidently set the previously smooth soccer lawn on fire. The reality however was, while it far surpassed being stuffed in a cage and punctured with needles, it was not quite the glamorous action-hero role he had had in mind. He had a "uniform", but unlike the cool one-piece skin suit with lots of gizmos he had originally imagined, red with decorated flame, it was a simple light-weight jacket (but at least it was red; its function was to both track and mask his signature) and a wrist-watch that coupled as a communicating device. And he had a job too. Keeping watch in front of an old warehouse…contraire to the video-game arsenal of missions.

The warehouse was one of the several ideal locations to keep a watch from, one of those places connected by a multitude of roads and alleyways, smack bang in the middle of an intersection. The gigantic computer at base had tracked abnormal pulsing energy signals to the city of Kamakura, but it, as of then, lacked the skill to narrow down the coordinates.

Which was what had stuck him in such a boring location, leaning against a post with a bored look on his face, feigning waiting for someone who could only equal trouble.

Truthfully, he was waiting for someone of the likes, but he was no deviant exchanging cigarettes or drugs. Hell, his mother would murder and then castrate him if he did do anything of the sort. Still, a white stick danced on his lips as he sucked at the lollypop, the only remotely interesting thing to keep him company…and awake for that matter. Midnight was the time he would normally have been comfortably in bed…but as the old boss said, casualties were mounting. And it was their duty, as pawns of the government, to keep those casualties to an absolute minimum…and that meant catching the elusive shadows that brought about the destruction.

The other "option" was to be renegade. But he was a family, so that wasn't possible. Unless he could burn their bodies to a crisp himself and toss them onto the streets and into the face of the world above a home of smouldering ash and melted plastic. No…that was no option at all. He loved his family, and his home. And being a renegade meant living in a do-kill be-killed world.

Being a renegade meant having no heart and no life. The very idea was horrifying to him. No family, no friends, no support, no purpose…and blood. All the blood that was spilt.

And it was a very depressing thing to be thinking about in the darkness, where the only light came from the lampposts littered about the streets. But the old coot did have a habit of drilling them on it, and there was a renegade signal roaming around the city somewhere.

It was easy to tell them apart from the others like himself. They were the ones not registered on the database. And every one, whether renegade or not, had a code that could be scanned, and a marking on their body. A sort of symbol. His was on his chest, right under the pendent that dangled from a thong around his neck.

The pendent that was shaped like a flame. That his mother had given him after the truth had come out. The one that said that no matter how harsh she was at times, she still loved him.

He was fingering that pendent when something, or rather someone, crashed straight into him, knocking him off his feet. It was only because he had been lounging against the lamppost that he didn't go tumbling to the ground, reflexes kicking in and grabbing the long metal post.

The person who had run into him had no such luxury and was crawling to his knees from his sprawled-out position…when they both registered the shaking from pounding feet.

'What the hell?' Takuya gasped, quickly letting go of the lamppost as his teeth clattered together. Whatever was thundering towards them was bringing with them the force of an earthquake ranking 3.5 on the Richter scale…but the sound wasn't coming closer.

The boy at his feet sagged a little, if still panting rather desperately for air, half-looking backwards for a moment, as if to catch a glimpse of the cause of the mini-earthquake, before looking up at the brunette.

The brunette just stared. Looks like he had found his Renegade; earthquakes hadn't been on the menu. He should know; they'd had to check, seeing as the overly-frequent and localised earthquakes following a path of destruction. Buildings caving in, roads splitting…and coming from a country that was largely earthquake resilient, that was a rather big deal. Worse, they hadn't been able to pick out what the disturbance was caused by, except a Renegade signature was found at least an hour before.

Those earthquakes were greater than 6 on the Richter scale.

'Quite a tremor,' he commented casually, taking the empty stick out of his mouth.

'It certainly feels odd,' the other admitted, standing. From the lamplights, the brunette could only discern the other to be similar to his own age; his figure was cloaked in loose clothing and the hood came up upon his hair. His eyes were still visible, but the colour was difficult to pinpoint. 'Japan is no stranger to earthquakes, but she feels strange under my feet after my time abroad.'

He spoke with a slight accent, one so subtle that it would take a native Japanese speaker to realise and someone well cultured to recognise it.

'China?' Takuya guessed, being the first but not quite the second.

'Korea,' the other replied, before bowing. 'I apologize for running into you by the way.'

The brunette waved off the apology. Definitely the wrong person then. But he'd be damned if the heavy footsteps hadn't anything to do with it.

Speaking off the footsteps-

The stranger stiffened as he heard the footholds, before cursing in an unfamiliar tongue. Probably Korean, Takuya figured, and although he had to admit the sound so heavy was rather frightening, the other certainly wasn't reacting right to the situation.

'I apologize again,' the other said hurriedly, bowing again before picking up something he had dropped. What it was, it was difficult to tell. 'You should leave.'

He quickly darted into the nearest alley-way, leaving a rather befuddled and slightly insulted Takuya behind. Of course, he couldn't well tell a stranger he was _en garde_.

The footsteps stopped once again, before a red flash of light suddenly occurred to the east. Abandoning the post for curiosity, he ran into the next street…immediately finding the source of the shaking ground.

The guy was huge. Fat, obese…whatever. He reminded the other of the Homonculus Gluttony in the Fullmetal Alchemist series. And he was panting, quite heavily, as though he had been chasing something before falling to one knee, roaring and rubbing at his eyes. Around the wide frame, the other caught a glimpse of a shadow departing, but the owner of that shadow was no-where to be seen.

The brunette turned his attention back to the other, which looked like his classical definition of a bully with an elongated nose, then the shirt he was wearing, covered in mud as if he had been playing like a child in the riverbanks. His eyes became drawn to the shirt tail, where a brown marking was showing. It looked like the devil's three-pointed trident standing upon a straight line which could symbolise any form of support. The symbol of earth.

Well, there was his Renegade he supposed. He was rather lucky the shirt tail had been out and the buttons not done up properly. He was also lucky the guy hadn't the sense to cover it like everyone else, though most symbols were luckily under clothing. Of course, they had one Talent, not a Renegade, that had the misfortune of having his symbol in the middle of his forehead, and the symbol of ice was far more complicated than his own fire symbol. That meant a lot of makeup, much to his chagrin, under the stupid orange hat he was so fond of. If he was any older, the old boss would snatch it away, but even _he_ had some morals.

Evidently the big lumbering guy had not taken such care. Nor apparently did he with anything, including walking and speech, because after he had looked around and spotted him, he slouched over.

'You, you seen brat past?'

His Japanese was rather clumsy, but rather than that which gave the person away as a foreign speaker newly learning the language, it seemed he was somewhat…dysfunctional. A speech disability at least. However, he spoke slowly enough to be understood, even under the languid tongue.

'Nope,' the other replied, a little cheekily. 'But if you're chasing someone, you're doing a bad job lumbering about.'

That phrase suddenly reminded him of the other boy, and he wondered for a fleeting moment if that was the victim of the chase. But he had evidently insulted the other one (the boss was s_o _going to give him an earful in the morning) and apparently he didn't take insults too well.

He kneeled down and slammed his enormous fists into the asphalt and Takuya could feel every organ in his body rattling in its confines. He quickly tore off his gloves even as the rest of him fell forward and summoned fire to his hands, flicking them like little darts till the other straightened and roared in pain again, flesh singed.

To his utmost surprise, the lamplights to the sides hadn't even flickered during the earthquake.

Hmm…so it was localised. Good.

He almost hit himself thereafter. The reasonable thing to do would have been to take to the air. His ears were still buzzing and blood was still pounding through his skill (at least that told him he was alive). He remembered Junpei drilling something about air rising in heat or something of the sort…but he found now he couldn't remember the physics even if he tried.

Not that he needed to. There really wasn't anyone on the streets, and two monsters fighting were about the same as a monster and a teenager.

So no-one would notice the tail sneaking under the flair in jacket and the wings bursting through invisible folds in the shoulder blades. He gave them a good flap, then rose as the other slammed his fists down again.

'Not going to work again,' he called down, making sure not to fly too high as he summoned some more fire to his fists. It was a good thing he did because the other summoned a hammer out of the ground and swung clumsily at him.

He parried the blow with a fiery fist…which was another bad idea. Fists were no match for hammers, though the heat grasped the metal and travelled down its length. Another roar of pain greeted his own sore fingers as the other dropped the weapon, arms blistered.

The other lunged boldly, causing the brunette to dodge out of the way…which the tail made a tad harder. Unfortunately, he couldn't get the wings without the tail. That went on for a bit as he retaliated with fiery fists and darts, before he crashed into a gate.

'Damn,' he groaned, flexing his wings again and checking for damage. They rippled, before extending to their full length. 'Phew.' The lady would have murdered him. Actually, she would have fixed him after the _boss_ murdered him.

He then realised he'd forgotten about the other…who was spinning on the spot and causing dust and earth (seeing as they were on cement, he didn't see where it was all coming from) to fly about him like a tornado.

'Damn,' he said to himself again, before rising into the air and spinning his tail.

The whirlwind of fire collided with the whirlwind of earth, momentarily blinding him.

Then his wristwatch and the other's earpiece sounded at the same time with a soft bleep and then static. By the time the static cleared and he could hear the question, albeit a little annoyed, the other was gone, probably back to chasing his quarry or to lick his wounds.

He hoped he'd managed to get the feet as well as he had the hands.

Then he grinned. Those burns would blister well. No more thumping and causing earthquakes and getting little kids trapped in buildings for a while.

…

He breathed a sigh of relief as he paused under a tree in the park, hearing nothing save the stillness of the night. Good then, he had managed to lose his pursuer. Unfortunately now they knew where he was…but seeing as he had followed them to the location and not the other way around, it didn't really matter.

He wondered about the other boy. His tone had been a little too casual, as if asking or accusing him. He couldn't blame him; truthfully he played quite a big role in the large-scale situation though not entirely by choice. But for someone to accuse, they had to _know_. Was he another one of _them_? One who had simply failed to recognise him?

It was stupid of him; he should have just stayed away. He would have been safer. But he couldn't, and _they_ knew that all too well. He had family, even if they had either forgotten him or thought him dead…or if some parts even knew…like that brunette woman who was, or should be, his step-mother. Or the large dog which slightly unnerved him by its enthusiasm and the large yet sharp eyes that managed to pierce through any barrier. And not only that, but there was something buried in the heart of the city that dragged him there, eventually, against his will.

The alternative was something too terrible to imagine…or let happen. And that was exactly what _they_ wanted, though he would never understand their desire for it.

At least it was like picking out a needle in a haystack when they couldn't track the code or his eyes. Unfortunately it only took a matter of days to pinpoint the former, thanks to the tracker. The best he could do with that was scramble the code…unless he wanted to be a paraplegic for the rest of his life, and that was if he was lucky. Which he rarely ever was. It did favour him sometimes though; luck was what gave him the means to keep on scrambling the code and vanishing again. As long as he could do that, and keep outrunning the others, maybe he could stop more people from getting hurt. As it was, there were too many, most of them ignorant, thinking it was Mother Nature turning against them.

His eyes were a different matter, and depending on what he was doing he either covered them with a black cloth or with dark-lens glasses. After all, having eyes that changed rather spontaneously from their natural blue to variants of brown, and worse, red, was a rather unique trait.

He gritted his teeth before pulling out the small compact from beneath his clothes and the electrode it was connected too, before piercing the latter through his skin without a sound.

In a few moments, he would vanish off the radar as well. Then he could go home. Or as much a home as a safe-house was.

Another place where luck had favoured him. Along with caution. But having jamming equipment in his apartment wasn't as suspicious as carrying it on him. Of course, it's a lot more common in Korea, but it wasn't on enough to attract unwanted attraction.

There were a lot of people who valued their privacy after all. Especially in the shadier areas of town.

But he was a teenager living alone, getting into fights and never going to school. On the outside anyway. Truthfully, he wanted none of those things.

The compact blinked once, telling him it was done before reflecting eyes shaded like the opal jewel. A bad luck stone and a talisman rolled into one.

…

She winced, pulling herself out of the water and onto the sand, before rolling over and trying to massage the pain away. Damn him, she thought savagely, giving it up as a lost job and instead reaching for the pain balm. He'd definitely gotten her good and proper, though she had given him rather a cause with her acid rain.

He'd accomplished what he had wanted. It'd be a while before she could summon up or affect water to that level. For the first few weeks, even the tiniest bit of water had burned her horribly. And her skin had resembled a prune that had gotten badly sunburnt.

It was back to her belly-flesh pale now…thank goodness. But it still pained sometimes.

A shadow loomed over her and she looked up, hoping it was something good and not at the same time. She wanted her revenge after all.

Then she winced as the sun hit her eyes. They were back to normal in the water now, but the sun still made them sore, and now she felt about for her sunglasses.

'What is it?' she asked, sounding a little annoyed. Anyone who knew the brunette girl well though knew it wasn't annoyance though. She was well used to the other's lumbering tone.

'Found him but gone,' the other mumbled back, clumsily handing her the towel she had discarded before her early swim.

'Why thank you.' She towelled down her hair, letting it string down her shoulder (it'll fluff out a little once it dried) before tying it around her waist, before she got a better look at the other's puffy eyes and blistered hands, hissing as soon as he did.

'What happened?' she asked, taking the right palm and sucking the pus out of it before moisturising it with better water. No dizziness or pain accompanied it, which meant low scale manipulation of water seemed to be working quite well. 'Pink-eye?'

She was scowling a little though. She knew exactly what it was. Laser.

Anyone watching would have been surprised at the tenderness of her touch as she fingered the swollen skin gently. The other winced, his form already depleted but still larger than a healthy male, making his skin a little more tender.

Tears formed at the edge as she gently prodded the skin.

'Oh, stop your crying you blundering mass,' she scolded.

'Hurts,' the other cried, a little childishly. He couldn't help it though. That was just how his mind was. 'Make it stop.'

There was only one person who could do that. Because everybody's instinct was to survive, even as they tried to defy it. The easiest way was to get someone else to do it, but it was more than death.

It was rebirth, a utopia where the possibilities never arose again, that they longed for.

…

_**End of Chapter 1**_

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN:**_ I picked Kamakura because it's a shoreline place, and that's the place in Elfen Lied which had the facility…convenience really. It's also a natural fortress and was once the _de facto _Capital of Japan. It's also quite large.

You might remember that the warriors usually have a marking of their symbol somewhere on their body. Agunimon's is on his chest, while Grumblemon's is lower down. Lobomon/Wolfmon's is on his shoulder and Beetlemon/Blitzmon's is on his back. Kumamon/Chakkmon's is on his forehead, and I can't remember where the rest of them are.


	2. Five Member Team

…

_**THE LION IN THE SKY**_

…

_**Chapter 2**_

_**Five Member Team**_

…

'So let me get this straight,' Tsubokura Katashi said in a rather expressionless tone, staring down at the brunette. 'You found a Renegade responsible for the earthquakes and _you let him get away_.'

'Yes sir,' the other replied, standing smartly and making sure to keep the extra perk out of his voice. Seriously, he had gotten further than anyone else, and the old coot decides to give him an ear-lashing. 'At least I found him though, and I know what he looks like.'

'Yes you did and you do,' the white haired man (it had once been gold) admitted, apparently a little grudgingly. 'Lot of good that does if he's who knows where by now.'

'Well, he is rather slow…' Takuya offered.

'Indeed.' Apparently Tsubokura was not amused. 'And yet he could have been walking for five hours now and be anywhere in the vicinity. If he had left, we'd at least be able to narrow down his location.'

'Slow and steady wins the race,' Orimoto Izumi chirped up, having been the only one present who'd managed to get a good night's sleep.

'Gee thanks Izumi,' the brunette groaned, tired, not in the mood for school and _certainly_ not in the mood to be patronised. He was surprised it wasn't _Kouji_ doing the patronising, but a closer look at the longer-haired male told him the other was almost dead on his feet, and he should have been in about the same condition as Izumi. 'Hey, where's Tomoki?'

He'd just noticed the absence. Junpei was working on the computer like he normally did in the couple of hours before school. And he was…well, him. Yawning like a circus lion because of the second all-nighter in a row. He definitely wasn't looking forward to the next night.

The roster was a little complicated, if only because there were only the five of them that had Talent…and weren't Renegade, consequently either out there causing trouble or locked in a high-security government prison. Three of them were on duty a night, along with one adult manning the command centre. Two of them had a night off. They rotated, so every time one of them would do a double shift and then get a day off. They alternated them all, so they all managed an equal amount of sleep, though there were shifts and changes when one of them were sick or injured or there was something they couldn't afford to miss.

Last night had been Kouji and Izumi's night off, and Tomoki's double shift. His day off was the coming night, with Kouji's double shift, but he looked like he had already done one.

'Tomoki's sick,' the raven haired male replied on cue, scowl set in place and bags under his eyes making the look even more prominent. 'I took his shift last night.'

'You're not taking yours today are you?' the brunette asked, a little tentatively.

'Of course,' he responded, a tad stubbornly, but Tsubokura interrupted.

'You know the rules. No three-shift blocks during the week if it can be avoided. Kanbara-kun, Orimoto-kun, you two will be covering for Himi-kun and Minamoto-kun tonight, and provided Himi-kun is back on his feet, he will take Kanbara-kun's shift tomorrow night while Shibayama gets his usual night off. If Himi-kun is still out, we'll sort something else out.'

'Okay.' Izumi quickly pulled out her planner and scribbled that down. Takuya didn't bother. He was already mixed up.

'So I do double-shift and get tomorrow night off if Tomoki's back.'

'Weren't you listening?'

'Oh, leave him alone Kouji,' Junpei interrupted, logging out of the mainframe. 'Takuya actually said it right.'

And he had been looking forward to the sleep too.

'Oh, and Kanbara-kun?' He looked over the rim of his glasses. 'I want you to train your wings with Orimoto-kun after school.'

…

Izumi stared as the brunette chugged down a can of coke.

'What?' he said defensively as he stopped for some air. 'I'm tired you know.'

It was very rare for one of them to have to full out fight on the first night of a double-shift.

'I'd probably be doing the same thing,' the blonde admitted. 'But it's still gross to watch.'

'So don't watch.' But Takuya had started drinking again, so it came out rather garbled.

'Excuse me?'

'So don't watch,' the brunette repeated, taking a large gulp before lobbying the can into the bin. 'Always need a caffeine boost in a double-shift.'

Not to mention all the homework he wasn't going to get done.

'Right-o.' Izumi slipped off her jacket and tossed it next to Takuya, before letting her wings burst through the top she was wearing. One of those that exposed the shoulder blades and the lower parts of the back, so she did not have to keep mending the shirts every time she wanted to fly. All her dresses were the same style. Depending on the conditions through which she was flying and the overall situation, the wings were either nerveless butterfly wings or strong feathered avian ones whose wingspan was about twice the length of her own body. 'Let's go.'

That day she had chosen her stronger wings. There was plenty of space in the underground bunker and the whole point was to work with power. After all, it wasn't a nimble little sprite that beat him. It was a lumbering mass of…whatever it was. She wondered if that appearance was a consequence of the Talent or if the guy was just seriously overweight.

In any case…

'Come on Takuya.'

He extended his own wings, wincing a little as the shirt beneath the jacket ripped _again_. His mother had a field day with all the mending she had to do with him. But luckily he had the best mother in the world and she was willing to do that for him.

With one good beat, the red dragon like wings lifted him off the ground. He just caught sight of his opponent's devilish grin before she crashed into his wing-tip like a blur. The crumpled feathers lost height and he skewered the other, narrowly avoiding crashing into the wall.

'Ouch. Watch where you're going woman.'

'Geeze, no wonder. You're so _slow_.'

'I'll show you slow!'

But she was too fast, always darting around and crashing into him like the force of cannonballs.

'Are you watching?' Izumi sounded vaguely annoyed.

'Watching what?' Even in training, Takuya did not like getting beaten.

'If you only use your wings to stay airborne, they're going to hinder you as much as they help.' Her voice took on the baby-speak sort of tone, as if she was explaining a house rule to a toddler. 'Not to mention you've got _no_ idea how to

'So how does throwing big fat cannonballs at me help?' He realised half a second later how unwise his statement was.

'Are you calling me _fat_?' Izumi shrieked.

'No, no I-' He shrunk completely under her fierce gaze. Sometimes he didn't get women at all.

…

Minamoto Kouji considered himself rather lucky. Sure he had volunteered to take Tomoki's shift when he found he couldn't even get out of bed without falling over, but he could have just as easily handed it to Izumi who had also been scheduled for a night off. It wouldn't have been very gentlemanly though, and it was a blessing to be away from his lovey-dovey parents on their anniversary night.

In fact, he avoided their company, especially his step-mother's, as much as he could.

It wasn't that she was a bad person. In fact, he was pretty lucky his father fell in love with someone so kind and caring as opposed to the wicked witch in a lot of the literature he had read. No, the root of the problem wasn't really her. It was him, his father and his _real_ mother.

The mother who had died so soon after giving birth to him. The woman people said had died of a broken heart. He never understood that; it wasn't like she had lost her newborn son to die so, or her husband..? But the fact that he had remarried years later, fallen in love again after giving himself to her, brought on a shadow of doubt. What else could it have possibly meant?

Ever since he had been old enough to understand, that shadow had lurked over him. That…and the only other possibility he could come up with. That _he_ hadn't been good enough for his mother. Not the angel she had wanted, but something deformed, demon-like…

He couldn't imagine any real mother being like that. But then again, he had never known his. His head found it easier to blame his father, more so after Satomi came along. His heart still clutched the other possibility though, leading to a two-way repellent sort of personality.

He knew he wasn't normal when the camera flash had backfired on the photographer…all while his shoulder seared and burnt under his shirt. Afterwards, with some training, the control over light particles had been easier. The lights stopped flicking on his own, and flashes stopped backfiring. But there was another wall.

It had been…relieving, for lack of a better term, to find out there were other people like him in that aspect. They didn't seem grossed out by their appearances though, the animalistic characters that had been suppressed by technology after they started appearing once their power output reached a certain level. Like his sharper ears and elongated snout. And his eye-colour.

He should be thankful he didn't sprout a tail like Takuya. Or wings. At least ears and noses didn't constitute having to repeatedly mend shirts…and pants for the elder of the two Kanbara brothers. Those sorts of changes had turned out to be permanent without the technology. Others, like Izumi's duel wing types and Junpei's alternation between shell and insectoid wings, were random without the technology. The latter's had accidently cut his cousin's cheeks one time. Apparently, they still didn't get along.

On the subject of "should be thankfuls", he should be thankful his humanities teacher happened to be absent that day. He hadn't that homework done. He'd managed to whiz through the math problems and the multiple choice questions for science, but the essay…he hadn't even thought of what to write. That was a bit of a downside of being a Talent. You automatically got drafted into the Government or arrested. And being drafted meant working nights, and some days when there was an emergency. Luckily, for the most part all Renegades seemed to wait for the cover of darkness before moving. There was just something about the sun that seriously dampened Talent power. But that involved sleepless nights and having to drag oneself through school the next day, and sometimes, especially with double-shifts, homework incomplete because they had used the afternoon for a much needed nap instead.

He was also lucky that Tsubokura had practically forced him to take the night off so as not to get a triple-shift. That meant he could have a nap, finish his humanities essay (after starting it of course) and get a good night's sleep. All on the day his parents' weren't even home.

He didn't even mind the stipulation. He and Tomoki mightn't be the best of friends, but he was a decent kid. Just as long as the other didn't rope him into a video game. But if he was well enough to do that, then he was definitely well enough to get back to "work".

'My legs still feel like jelly,' the young brunette admitted. 'Ni-san thinks I'll be fine for tomorrow night though.'

Himi Yutaka had, to the shock of everyone else, been rather happy with the whole situation. He claimed it was teaching his kid brother some responsibility and giving him some fibre. In other words, good character building. And it wouldn't last forever. At the most only another few years.

Just as long as it took to finish manufacturing the cure and tracking down all the children who had a parent affected with it. There weren't that many; all had been in the same place at the same time, and there had been about fifty or so people in the building when the biological weapon had gone off. As far as they knew, the effects had worn off within ten minutes because the doorman had walked into the conference room and showed no trace of the gas in his blood.

The effects of the adults had worn off. But apparently it had triggered a mutation along the germline, resulting in Talented children. No exceptions.

It wasn't that easy finding all the children though. By the time the special division of the Government had discovered the cause, a lot of the children, now mostly teenagers, had either been abandoned, orphaned (in most cases they themselves were the killers) or had fled of their own accord. They were the Renegades. And some of them had a habit of causing trouble. Most of them were also rather messed up. They were to be in holding for both their own protection and other's.

According to the records, there should only be six children left. Four teenagers, one of which was the "earthquake boy". Then there was a little baby belonging to a couple almost too old to have children. And there was Kanbara Shinya, Takuya's younger brother, who currently hadn't shown any signs of Talent. But everyone showed them at a different age, and the kid _was_ only eight. Trying to predict when a child would start coming into their power was a headache. It was impossible. If it weren't, there'd be more of them and less Renegades.

They really were the lucky ones.

…

Junpei sighed in relief once he got the message that Tomoki would be fit for the following night, otherwise either he or Takuya would have wound up with the dreaded triple-shift. Once upon a time he had wondered as to the point of monitoring the one district when, theoretically, the Renegades could wind up anywhere, but Tsubokura had simply stated that they always wound up at Kamakura sooner or later, and so they did.

It was a lot easier than chasing after loose signals. The system, although it was designed to pinpoint any talent anywhere on the globe based on their DNA imprints and power output, wasn't particularly good at it. All it really told them was how many Talents were in the city at a time, and even then it could sometimes be a little off depending on the power fluctuations. For example, it was currently showing eight signals, but little he knew there were actually ten Talents. One the system couldn't pick up, lacking the DNA that constituted the file, and Tomoki's was currently shrouded thanks to his illness.

When he would check the computer the next morning, he'll find seven and a half signals.

In the meantime though, he wound up placed the same place Takuya had been the previous night, and looking at the apparent site of an earthquake.

Of course, _he_ knew better.

The metal fence was bent a little, as if the rods had melted inwards. That alone told him Takuya had crashed into it, and taking into account the hollow, with his wings. There were also other scorch marks scattered around, along with uplifted earth clumps which were perfectly consistent with the brunette's explanation of the events that had conspired. Evidently, his "diving head-first" hadn't worked against an earth-element. It was hard to set dry earth of fire, and with all the solid lattices in the soil like silicon, it would take quite a bit of temperature to cause its composition to change and let through heat.

Maybe Tsubokura had been a tad harsh. Takuya had been totally out of his element.

He deliberated over the mess a little longer, hoping to figure out some clues even though Tsubokura had sent someone to scope it out already. Then he sat on a bench outside the warehouse and waited.

After a while, he pulled out a manga book of Fullmetal Alchemist and started off from where he had previously left off, one eye making sure to scope all corners. He finished that book, then started on the next volume, making sure to tap his foot impatiently and check his watch. He even made a show of being exasperated, stretching, and making to stalk off before answering a silent phone call and sitting back down, exhausted.

After all, it was his double shift, so it wasn't exactly feigned. He finished the next volume too, then started on some complex calculations in designing a new prototype. But he was about to sign the night off as another dud when he found the metal behind him twisting and arching.

His own insectoid wings burst out and he shot straight up to avoid the sharp points digging into where he had just sat.

A second later, the dead lamplight flared to life as he sent electricity through its length, revealing the teenager in the shadows, just a year or so younger than him. The same age as Izumi and Kouji.

The next steel rod was sent back with its electrons going crazy, and the boy barely managed to dodge it. Even so, his hair stood on end and he greeted his teeth. A split second later, the electricity _jumped_, and he stifled his cries by biting his lip before spitting blood onto the ground as he gasped for breath.

Two sets of brown eyes stared blankly at each other.

'You're not him,' the boy muttered finally. 'But you're a Talent.'

Apparently another Renegade. But who was this guy looking for?

Junpei decided to do the sensible thing and ask.

'Tch, like I'd tell you Govermnent flakies.'

With that, more metal snaked towards him.

The insectoid wings started vibrating hard and he easily dodged, using the sonic emitted to detect where each was coming at him. In the meantime, the sonic continued increasing in resonance. That stimulated the electron sea and trigged an electric wave, which eventually resulted in the other being unable to throw anything because he got shocked every time he tried.

'You're strong.'

It was odd to get a compliment from someone you were fighting quite dangerously with. But most of the Renegades enjoyed their freedom above all else. They didn't want to be cured. If they did, their minds caved in the end, if they had no support. With power at their fingertips…anything could happen. And it was hardly ever anything good.

'You're willing to just give it all up?'

Unlike his, the brown eyes were wild, almost intoxicated. The fight was exhilarating. They danced. Metal and electricity. Sonic and mirrors (he had been quite startled when one had sprung up). Glass and resonance again.

Eventually Izumi and Takuya showed up, the former altering the course of the metal spears and the latter making them white hot so that the other had no choice but to dodge. In the meantime, he, Junpei, finally managed to get his wings to beat fast enough to shatter the glass the other had encased his body in as protection.

He screamed shrilly, commanding the metal he could reach. Izumi, the closest, faltered in the air as her own body minerals even began reacting, and Junpei's wings fell a few beats.

'Hey, quit that!' Takuya shouted, catching Izumi as she spat out a little blood. 'This is already over!'

No-one was listening to him.

The ground was shaking again. But not like an earthquake. There was an odd buzzing in his ears, but he ignored that and the building headache, sending a burst of electricity through the ground. With all the metal, the electricity was quickly attracted to him, and both he and Izumi squeezed their eyes shut and blocked their ears.

In the end, Takuya had to poke his arm.

'Dammit,' he cursed at the same time, his other hand on the communicator. 'This thing's fried.'

So were the phones. And their codes.

The codes that targeted that which was…inhumane.

…

'That leaves five,' Tsubokura mused, switching off a screen monitor for the holding cells. 'Another one who doesn't want to give up power he can't even control.'

That was really the root of things. Not being able to fit into society simply because one was different from the general consensus. Monsters, animals, inhumane…they were all because one was different, misunderstood…and really, feared.

Some people were just lucky, that they were loved no matter what. That they had things in the world that they would give _anything_ for. Not everybody was that lucky.

He frowned over the next few taps. Why was it that a cure was so damn difficult to engineer?

But they were getting there. They had to be. After all, even baby steps got a person just that little extra forward…

…

_**End of Chapter 2**_

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: **_Katashi means hard/firm. Tsubokura means government office, part of one of the characters of Bleach. He's a sort of a cross between Seraphimon and Yamaki from season 3. And like Yamaki we'll be referring to him by his surname for the most part.

Kouji's parental situation has been tweaked again. Kousei and Satomi are married for three years like the canon, but his real mother is not Tomoko. Just a nameless woman who died soon after childbirth. Kousei and Kouji don't get along like canon too, but more details will be explored later. Tomoko is a widow with no children who still lives/lived with her mother. They're Korean, not Japanese seeing as I needed another country and Korea fit the bill. They'll show up in Kouichi's back-story.

The system used by the LWO actually can't pick Kouichi up. That's a different tracking thing he has to keep scrambling his code for. Has to do with Teruo, who's masquerading as Mercurimon. Teppei's appearance has been adjusted thanks to the added influence of Grumblemon, and Chiaki likewise at times with Ranamon in contact with a certain amount of water.

I found an opening and closing theme for this fic too. I write the fic from the little screen in my head. I wish I could animate it but I don't have the computer skills and the drawing would 1) take forever, 2) not be the quality I see it in my head and 3) involve me breaking a few rules. I should stick to stencils and anatomy drawings. And the odd scenery. And my mini-library of books.

So, the themes. Opening is "Just be Conscious", and the closing is "MIDNIGHT BLUE". Both are from Slayers but they seemed to suit rather well.


	3. Street Dancer

…

_**THE LION IN THE SKY**_

…

_**Chapter 3**_

_**Street Dancer**_

…

How the hell had he managed to get roped into this again? Oh yeah, because he just _had_ to be a nice guy. Although, he mused, trailing behind Izumi like the reminiscent image of a lost and scolded puppy, this wasn't the worst way he could spend the afternoon before his night off, though he _had_ been planning to utilise the time a little more effectively and get some homework done so he didn't have to complete it in his third detention in a row.

He had reckoned without Izumi's influence though. Although he could have done the logical thing and refused to accompany her, he didn't for two reasons. One, because Izumi was scarier than his mother and always had a way of getting what she wanted, not all her methods being entirely favourable to the opposing party, and two, because she had offered to help with English, his worst subject, in return for him escorting her to the festival. And although he wouldn't admit it to Kouji_or_ Shinya, he really needed the help if he hoped to pass. Of course, holding such leverage over his head was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what she could do to him if she wanted or needed him badly enough.

Why though didn't she ask Junpei first? He had the night free too (there hadn't been any complications as Tomoki was fighting fit) and there was the infallible crush that, although it had far simmered from love-sick puppy mode, made him a far more amiable companion than someone inclined to disagree with her every view or remaining sullenly silent (or rather, a silence easily misinterpreted as sullenness).

'If you didn't want to come with me, you should have just said so.' The lack of the characteristic elastic "snap" in her voice that was present when she was short on temper told him he needn't fear her wrath unless he said or did something stupid. When she was in a foul mood was a whole different story. She was perfectly amiable most of the time, but like everyone else she had buttons that shouldn't be pressed, and unlike other girls they boys were used to for the most part, a stubborn streak that had a habit of clashing with himself (and Kouji) especially. More often though he just "added fuel to the fire".A walking, talking cliché. Someone had a weird sense of humour.

'It's not that,' the brunette countered hurriedly. 'I thought you would enjoy this more with someone else.'

'If I go with Junpei, he'll think it's a date,' the other replied, turning into a wider street with certainty in her step. Her tone however said otherwise. 'Not that that's a bad thing or anything, or I don't like him, 'cause I do-not _like_like or-are you listening to me?'

Takuya jumped as the other almost shrieked in his ear. 'Jesus woman,' he cursed, sounding a little like his bachelor uncle. 'How about you just say what you meant and spare me the gooey romantic part.'

'That's just it,' Izumi said, exasperated that her dense friend had completely missed the point.

'What is?'

She sighed.

Well, excuse _him_ for not being a girl.

'He's sweet and all, and he's a great friend, but he just…well, you know.'

Takuya rubbed his head. 'Can you say that in simple Japanese please?'

A normal person would have left the topic alone, perhaps walking off in a huff. But not Izumi.

'He's too much of a teddy-bear really. Like a cuddly uncle.'

Cue the odd look.

'What? You don't have an uncle that spoils you like crazy?'

'No, I have an uncle that's completely wild because he doesn't have a woman to tame him.' At her expression, he added: ''kaa-san's words, not mine, and so wild that he was disowned by his parents and even his own siblings won't help him out anymore.'

'Anyway,' Izumi pressed on, getting the discussion back on track. She didn't want to hear all about that uncle again. It was a famous Kanbara story. 'It's not an equal relationship. Sure women are beginning to emerge in some parts of the world as the dominant species, but I don't think a romantic relationship can work that way. Either I'll get bored and go after someone else, or he'll either change or get crushed.'

'You made him sound like the biscuit in my bag,' the brunet pointed out. 'But I think I get it. You want a wild guy and him to have a sweet and gentle girl.'

'I didn't say that,' the blonde frowned, before the rest of the sentence caught up and she stopped walking, causing the other to almost walk straight into him. 'Hey!'

'You stopped right in front of me,' the other shot back.

'You're saying I'm not sweet or gentle?'

Sometimes, girls felt like aliens.

'You're seriously not. It's not like you're a yankee or anything, but-'

Izumi huffed, turned her back on him and starting walking fast.

'Hey, wait up!'

'You really need to walk on the way you say things Takuya,' she scolded once he caught up. 'You're lucky I know you, otherwise you'd be the yogurt with a straw in _my_ backpack.'

'Enough about the food,' Takuya groaned as his stomach rumbled. 'What's the rush anyway?'

'It starts at five.'

'So, it's a quarter to and we're already here.'

She looked around, spotting the stage that had been set up and the crowd that was already gathering. 'Oh.' Then her own stomach rumbled.

'Let's eat,' she declared, fishing her yoghurt out and vanishing into the crowd.

'Wait up!'

'I want to get a good spot.'

'Sheesh. What are we watching anyway?'

…

It turned out to be a dance performance, and a rather excellent one that even he, who had little grace to speak of and no finesse, could still appreciate. Unusually, it was a single dancer, wearing a white blank mask that balanced his black yukata and almost black hair. Apparently they had long missed the main performance, and the repeat wouldn't happen till a few hours. In the meantime, there were individual performances, and then a class which consisted mostly of junior and senior high school girls but also contained a mix of adults, male and female, and unfortunate boyfriends.

Somehow, Takuya had gotten lumped into that category, and as Izumi pointed out, the quick-lesson would help with his wing coordination.

It was no wonder he sucked at it, he thought to himself as he tried to copy the movement of the dancer on stage (a different one to the performer they had just watched) while the others floated around in the crowd. It was very easy to distinguish professional from amateur, even if they hadn't been wearing heavy makeup and/or masks and yukatas as opposed to the mix of casual clothing and uniforms. They even moved with a definite grace.

Him, he couldn't pick his way out of a plastic bag.

Izumi seemed to have a much better hang of it…except when it came to where to put her legs. That was the disadvantage of being able to flitter through the air like a moth. When it came to putting both legs on the ground, there was a definite clumsiness. Perhaps because the air had no surface, and the support lay on the spread of her wings as opposed to the soles of her feet. Sure, she touched down enough, but she generally jumped and leaped and covered distances…when she wasn't walking or running to places or skipping up stairs. Even when sitting down, her feet alternated between ground and air, spending a majority of their time in the latter medium. She very rarely had to worry about her legs tangling up because of the extra mobility she was used to, but the one thing about dancing like _this_ is that she couldn't exactly pull her wings out and "cheat" gravity.

If he tried that, he'd have knocked half the crowd down, the number having substantially grown.

He tried to mimic the next position, feeling like a chimpanzee instead of a dancer.

'Relax,' said a voice in his ear, and he almost jumped before realising it was the dancer that had done the last mini-performance. He was easy to pick out from the others as he was wearing black, as opposed to the rainbow colours most of the others were dressed in. There were a few paler colours too amongst the taller and presumably ones, and the master on the stage was dressed in white, but there were no other blacks. 'You're too tense.'

The accent seemed familiar for some reason.

Takuya tried, but he felt like a squeezed up rag. He heard a slight laugh behind the mask before two hands took his shoulders. 'Down,' he ordered, pressuring the joints slightly.

They relaxed. He pointed out a few more places, and then when the next move came gestured at which parts to move and which to keep still. It was far easier to follow, having the physical pressure guiding him. The movement seemed easier too.

'It'll come easier with practice,' the dancer said to the expression the other sprouted. 'Remember, with fluidity you want to use as little muscle and power as possible.'

Because of the mask obscuring any facial expression, it was very hard to pinpoint the tone.

'It takes less muscles to smile than to chew your lip in concentration.'

Okay, he just sounded plain amused at that point, and Izumi had obviously heard because she was stifling a laugh, almost tripping over her feet in the process.

_Karma baby!_

The next movement, lacking the pressure as the dancer wandered off to help someone else, almost caused a collision with him and the person to his other side (not entirely either of their fault). He had finally gotten the dodging cannonballs in the air part though, as he missed by twisting to a side instead of wasting energy and time jumping clear. Unfortunately, that got his legs a little tangled, leaving him and Izumi tangled together on the floor and the girl on his other side flouncing away in tears.

'Okay, what'd I do?' Takuya asked, confused as he picked himself off the ground. 'Sheesh, you'd think she'd be grateful I didn't knock her flat.'

He held out a hand, which Izumi took and stood breathlessly. 'Geeze,' she sighed, wiping her forehead as the unofficial class rounded up. 'That stuff's way harder than it looks.'

'You could have just told me to use as little power as possible you know.'

'Right, and that would have made so much sense to you until you saw it in action.'

She had a point. If he hadn't had such a hard time with that fight two days ago or dodging the cannonballs (eventually he'd gotten the hang of it), he probably wouldn't have understood _how_.

'Besides, there's no point in knowing,' the half-Italian pointed out. 'You're not going to go to someone and say: "excuse me, can you wait while I try to figure out the least energy-costly way to avoid your attack?"'

'Well, my mind doesn't move that fast.'

'Your mouth does.'

And people thought they were a couple. _Seriously_.

'Still,' the blonde, blushing at the stares a little and their implications. 'It would be so much easier if gravity didn't exist.'

She whirled around, tripping in the process and sending them both sprawling to the ground again.

'See what I mean.' Her voice was rather muffled.

'Ask Junpei when it comes to physics,' Takuya groaned.

'It's simple science,' the other retorted. 'Not rocket science.'

'Yeah, well rocket science sounds so much easier.' Maybe because Edward Elric became a rocket scientist in 1923. Or maybe it was because he simply watched too much anime.

'You watch too much anime,' Izumi mumbled, getting herself up. 'Sorry 'bout that.'

'No comments on my dancing ability and I won't comment on that,' the brunet offered.

Izumi grinned. 'Agreed.' She flicked her blonde hair back, watching the crowd disperse a moment. 'Hey, looks like there's trouble over there?'

'Over where?' Why oh why did he have to be shorter than a girl that was only _three_ months his senior. He was a guy Goddamit.

'There.' She pointed, and he stood on his tip-toes, finding a rather large man (nothing like the guy causing the earthquakes though) arguing with someone. Who the other party was, they couldn't tell. 'Let's go see.'

'Sure.'

More cautious people had learnt to stay away from trouble. As it was, there wasn't a crowd because the man in the white yukata was speaking, but as they'd missed the first bit anyway becoming intimate with the ground, there was no point going over to the other side and attempting to understand and digest the rest.

Besides, if he didn't start on that English reading, he'd never get it done in time to do math, which was only slightly more bearable.

…

He had been all for slipping away from the roused up crowd as soon as he could manage after the displays, but the master, who had been recruiting volunteers leading up to the dance festival from those accomplished dancers that littered the streets, typically in the entertainment areas and particularly in Asakusa, had somehow heard about him and offered a perfectly reasonable price to perform in a more…organised setting. He'd accepted gratefully; dancing was about the only thing he was good at that he could use. Sure, he could housekeep, speak Korean and sneak around systems, but he had no intention of becoming an assassin and the medial was quite useless in Japan. As for housekeeping, that required regular shifts, and given his unusual…circumstances, he couldn't afford it. It was true that most Talents, renegade or no, only came out at night where their powers were amplified by the presence of the moon (of course, that excluded nights where there was none, like the one tomorrow night he noted with some thankfulness). They could theoretically use their powers during the day, but no-one did unless it was an emergency, and even then only on minor scales. It was too easy to get too close to the sun and burn. The moon was another case altogether.

Still, there was the tracking system. The code got rather shook up with all the dancing he did, and that was an added bonus. Still, he'd have rather gotten away from the crowd as soon as possible, as staying too long in a place that wasn't protected was like being a hanging bait waiting for a wolf to take a bite out of him. So he had meant to take off as soon as the pseudo-class finished, and he would have the moment the Master started his speech, if someone hadn't held him up.

That was a major downside to street-dancing, the reputation the dancers got. Truthfully, very few of them actually fit the bill: sluts, whores, prostitutes…but a lot of them, especially the ones that had the definite look of "young" wound up being misunderstood. And _that_ involved them dealing with a few psychos.

The yukatas and masks made them stand out, and the colours meant it was pretty easy to distinguish them. Mid-afternoon wasn't exactly the time most people got drunk, but some did head straight over to the pub after a half or three-quarter day work and then pass by someone on the streets…or in this case, pass by the mass of people swaying to the music. Hence why there was security at these areas.

Ones couldn't always rely on security however, especially once he got outside the perimeter. It was just another one of those days where Lady Luck was mad at him for some reason he could not fathom. Sometimes one could ignore them and get away. Other times they could slip through a crowd…non-existent in this case. And then of course hr could run like crazy…if he wasn't in a yukata maybe, and if he wasn't against the wall. Again, Lady Luck's work…or wrath.

The last option was to hit him, which was becoming increasingly tempting. Not only was the guy creeping him out (in the way those sorts of people crept out others) but he was also getting on his last nerve.

Not to mention he wasn't letting him get a word in edgewise, although he wasn't really attempting to after the initial snappish denial.

When the hand touched his shoulder, he spun around, knocking the guy's feet out from under him in a neat sweep and knocking him to the ground with a follow-up elbow. Then he followed the wall at a regular place before he reached the point to turn.

And then he stopped.

It was almost frightening how he had no problem knocking the man aside, not even caring whether he was hurt or waiting to check…and he couldn't bring himself to do either still. Even worse was that the idea of hurting other people was absolutely revolting to him.

A cold wind blew by then, and he drew his yukata closer to his skin, shivering. How easy it would be not to care. How easy it _was_. He was lucky-

Not exactly. He clutched himself in sudden terror as a bolt of pain shot through his back, around the shoulder-blades where wings normally attached to.

He closed his eyes and breathed, persistently ignoring the events that had just occurred, the thoughts that had just come, thinking instead of the people he _didn't_ want to hurt. Like the kind people who had taken him in. The smiling faces enjoying themselves and the world. And the earth…he didn't want to hurt her, destroy her. He didn't have the right to take her away from the billions, trillions, sextrillions of organisms that relied on some part of it for life. He didn't have the right to decide the world should perish.

He didn't even _want_ it to perish. It was so large, so full of mystery, so _amazing_…there was so much to learn, so much to experience, and he could only grasp a small amount of that. He couldn't divide the world into parts either, deciding he'd keep this part and get rid of this. Sometimes he wanted to, but again, it wasn't his right.

The problem was it was in his power. Power that was currently that would continue to be suppressed…until they found his heart.

No-one knew where it was. No-one knew who _he_ was. Not even him.

When he went by a name, he went by Shin. It was the name those who had taken him in gave. Faith in same in Japanese…amongst other things, but that had been the intended name. He rarely used it though. He only did when he couldn't get away with _not_ having a name.

They'd tried a DNA test when they'd picked him up, washed onto the shore. But it had changed so much since birth it was completely unrecognisable. It wasn't human.

_He_ wasn't human. But it hadn't deterred those two kind woman, the young widowed woman who'd lost her only love to a vicious war, and the kind elderly woman she nursed: her mother. That was why they named him as such. A world that encompassed so much.A word that made the difference between existing and _living_.

They named him faith. They told him to live. They were both dead now, but he was still alive.

The thought of them made him sad. And finally, the pain vanished. The prowess stopped attempting to claw its way to the surface. He loosened his hold on himself, sinking slowly to the ground. Even if the last key remained unfound, he couldn't let himself go. An inch of a blade could do as much damage as the whole thing if struck in the right place.

He took the mask off so he could wipe his face.

…

'Wow.'

Takuya whistled when the guy went flying to the ground. That had been some pretty nifty martial arts. Smooth, fluid, and using gravity to his advantage.

Izumi winced as the man hit the ground, groaned, and started yelling profanities to the air.

'Let's get out of here.' The brief sympathy had faded into revulsion. 'C'mon, ignore him.'

Without giving the other a chance, she dragged him out of earshot.

'C'mon,' she repeated. 'He wasn't even talking to us.'

'Sheesh,' Takuya muttered, fixing his jacket. 'What'd you think I was going to do? Beat him up?'

'Admit it,' she said, but with a tenderness the boys barely saw. 'You would have, if it was me he was talking about.'

She remembered that incident at school. The one that had ended in his suspension.

'And you would have given him a tongue lashing if it were me,' the brunet retaliated, though the annoyance was quickly fading. 'You were worried.'

'Well, you are a reckless idiot,' she said, punching him on the shoulder…hard.

'Ouch.'

The blonde stuck her tongue out. 'Take it like a man,' she teased. 'Hey, you okay?'

'Now you ask?' Takuya grumbled, before realising it wasn't him she was talking to at all, but the dancer in the black yukata.

He looked up, inspecting her face before the eyes behind the mask focused on Takuya, before widening.

'I'm fine,' he said quietly, clambering to his feet, and in that instant, Takuya remembered where he'd heard the other's voice before.

'Hey, I saw you yesterday. Well, like 1am yesterday "morning".' He said the last part in air-quotes, before remembering the introduction. 'Oh, I'm Kanbara Takuya, and this is Orimoto Izumi.' Those words came out a little rushed.

Izumi blinked at them both but the dancer in the black yukata was silent for a moment.

'I was dancing,' he said finally.

'In your street-clothes?' The half-Italian blinked again. He couldn't be any older than her, and to be a street dancer was-

The other shrugged. 'Dancing in a costume at night on the streets is asking for trouble.' Which was the complete truth, and the way he said trouble suggested that the not-so-unfortunate soul who was now being handled by some guards (or adults in any case) had been causing trouble of the same sort.

'Why do it though?' the brunet asked, having come to the same conclusion. 'Sure, you're one hell of a dancer, but if it's a trouble magnet-'

'_Takuya_.' The blonde punctured her interruption with a slap to the head.

'Ouch.' Takuya rubbed the tender area. 'You keep doing that, I won't have brain-cells left.'

'Like you have any,' she sniffed in a scolding manner. 'That's like asking why you play soccer in a tropical storm.'

'I need to be going,' the dancer interrupted before their "discussion" could escalate into a full-blown squabble. '_Hajimemashite.'_

He bowed.

'Hold on, you haven't told us your name.'

The dancer paused again. 'Shin,' he said finally, before taking his leave.

Once he had vanished from view, Izumi rounded on Takuya.

'What the heck was with those twenty questions?' she exclaimed.

'Jealous?' the other asked easily, closing his eyes.

'Don't go getting a bigger head than you already have,' the blonde sighed. 'But you only do that when there's something interesting about them.'

'He's Korean and a street-dancer at his age.' Takuya shrugged. 'That makes him interesting. And I also feel kind of sorry for him.'

'How so?' She hadn't noted the accent, having one herself.

Takuya looked towards where the other, Shin, had vanished. ''kaa-san always worries when I'm out at night, and I'm not even doing anything to get into trouble. On top of that, I've got backup. I just have to wonder what sort of family he has to practically sell his body.'

'Wow, you get deep,' Izumi teased, before falling into seriousness. 'But you're right. I hadn't even thought about that. Being a street dancer doesn't mean that though.'

'No, but it's not all that far away.' He paused. 'I have the craziest uncle in the world. If he watches those at night…_uurgh_.' He shuddered over-dramatically. 'No wonder 'kaa-san booted him out of the house the only time he ever visited. 'kaa-san's words,' he added, covering himself.

'Oh, you're such a Mama's boy.'

'You're lucky you're a girl,' he mock-growled.

Izumi just grinned. She knew better than him which lines to toe around, and as she had a double-shift, she was fuelled on sugar. 'Nope,' she said flippantly. 'I'm lucky I'm me.'

…

For a moment, his body froze, but it soon became apparent that the question had been casually tossed. Apparently the boy, the fire-user, hadn't connected him to the seismic Talent…or he was a very good actor and was simply searching for time and information.

The latter would be pretty useless to him. The former on the other hand…

He took his leave as quickly as he could, almost gliding through the streets. Interestingly, it didn't matter how fast he ran. He'd get to his destination at about the same time in any case.

It was almost as if the world operated on its own axis. Which it did, if one wanted to get technical.

It _should_ be an utterly ridiculous notion that such an infinitesimal part of the world could possess the might to completely obliterate it.

But all that reckoned without the circle that connected everything on earth to each other.

…

_**End of Chapter 3**_

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Asakusa is famous for being an entertainment district. It's also where I set Yami no Tenshi, Hikari no Akuma. Speaking of, really need to get back to that one day...

Their (the Talents') power relies on the cycle of the moon. Therefore peak when it's a full moon and nothing when there's no moon. When it's a sliver in the sky, they've still got substantial power. Not enough to cause massive damage to their surrounds, so right now Mr Earthquake can't cause buildings to collapse or a massive style earthquake, but remember the Talents are all at roughly the same power so they can do significant damage to each other. During the day the sun counteracts the power of the moon, so they can't output much. In an emergency Izumi would be able to summon her insectoid wings and fly a short distance, but if she does for too long, she can go catatonic. Takuya can summon darts but not major cyclones of energy. However this rule only applies after the peak maximum output is reached, ie. They've come "into" their power.

Lady Luck's wrath is a bit of a running gag sort of thing. It's actually got pretty serious roots, but we can add a little light humour in.

I think that was it for this chappie. Next one's one and a half pages already. No fights this time…sort of. No Talent vs. Talent was what I meant.

Wow, that was a long chapter. Compared to the others anyway. Hope you enjoyed. And dont forget about that nice shiny button at the bottom.


	4. Firecrackers

…

_**THE LION IN THE SKY**_

…

_**Chapter 4**_

_**Firecrackers**_

…

'So, you came back.'

The speaker was a boy of about twelve who looked up from the fortress he had been building with blocks. He had sniffed a little at the visitor, in an almost haughty manner.

'You don't need to sound so disgruntled,' Kouji replied, a little frostily. 'If it's such waste of your time, I won't bother next time.'

The boy added another block. 'Never outside the square,' he said, adding another...before it collapsed on him. 'I need my fortress.'

It was the same fortress he always built. And he never could pull it off without help.

Funnily enough, those blocks had belonged to him years ago. And he had used to build the exact same fortress. He hadn't ever been able to manage it without help either.

He picked up a block and set it.

'You need help.'

'So do you.'

_Why_ did he always come back to this?

Truth be told, he didn't really know. Part of him just felt like he had to.

Another part of him just felt pity for the kid trying to build a fortress around himself. Especially since he needed another person's help to do it.

…

'Are you telling me that someone who thuds around like a buffalo or a hippopotamus causing earthquakes is actually a _dancer_? And not only that, but a good one?'

Izumi sat on that thought for a moment. 'Was it that guy or the other one?' She frowned, beginning to gnaw at the bottom of her lip as she failed to remember which Takuya had mentioned, if indeed he had at all. 'Where is that idiot?'

'It's his brother's birthday today so he asked for the afternoon and night off,' Tsubokura replied, eyeing the blonde who was starting to go purple. 'Perhaps I should give him a call and prey his mother considers the matter as a sufficient enough emergency.'

'Oh yes,' the half Italian sighed, letting her breath out in a whoosh of air that caused the log book Tomoki was reading to fly off the desk. 'Sometimes trying to remember stuff can be hard work-oh, _sega_ Tomoki.'

'No problem,' the young brunette replied, withdrawing the log book and going back to catching up. He hadn't been about to do so on his day off.

It was only Tsubokura and the scientist he worked with, Ryuusui Shiohi, that worked full time. It was their work after all, even if it was a secret government organisation. There was a plenitude of such small divisions, working to cover up and/or correct the mess other people made with as much funding as they could scrape by while keeping the public blissfully ignorant. In the meantime, researched in Tokyo's bio-institute to further her grasp of science in the hopes that she may find a breakthrough, and Tsubokura did his, as Takuya called it, fiddling and nosing around and being the big grumps boss of things, but otherwise search, surveillance and consequent action. Generally it involved covering up sightings and damage from Renegades, chasing Renegades or the simple circumstances of a Talent coming into their power and causing a bit of a ruckus. But at other times he was trying to learn as much as possible about the virus and the people who had engineered it and been affected by it, looking for ways it could be controlled (which was now working rather well as his team of Talents was proof of) and why it was engineered and its intended purpose (multiple dead ends there).

The worst was when the off-shore oil platform had exploded, along with the illegal research facility buried underneath. The explosion had unfortunately destroyed all traces of evidence except for a man who had just happened to be on shore at the time, picking up materials. The information he had been able to provide had been most disappointing at first. As Shiohi had declared a few months later in frustration, it was only chemicals obtainable from drug-stores and supermarkets, which had a variety of functions when combined (or separate as it had chloroform in the list), but almost every pathway had led to dead ends. It had taken a consequent three years of work to replicate the volatile gas they believed to have caused the mutation, using a group of mice who had later spawned children which had grown up to demonstrate talent on a smaller scale. They had however died within days, presumably because they lacked the ability to think for themselves or know things except by experience or innate imprints (and it certainly couldn't be the latter).

Some of them had been quite horrific, similarly to what they initially thought to be suicides by the Talents before ways to dampen and control the effects had been engineered (or utilised because not all were related to chemicals, including, funnily enough, the chloroform-a potential last resort). They had later re-established that hypothesis when they observed some of the far-developed Renegades displaying characteristics and temperaments that could be considered to be…inhumane. There was a girl that bit into anything that didn't smell of poison, and all the Doctor's attempts to break her of the habit had failed. In the end, she had given the teen one of those toys babies used while teething, and when the other had found her limbs more interesting, had given her some dog bones which were currently holding up…until the acid she secreted from her saliva dissolved them.

Seeing five (currently four) children sitting and looking normal and happy was what made it all worthwhile though.

'It was the other one,' he confirmed, putting his cell phone away again. 'That may be nothing to concern ourselves with.'

'Not necessarily,' Kouji pointed out, arms crossed and leaning against the table, a slight scowl painted on his face. 'I'd like to know why the other guy was chasing him.'

'He might not have been,' Tomoki said, finishing with the log book and handing it to Junpei who put it back in its designated drawer. 'It could have been a coincidence the other guy was chasing someone and he was running.'

'I'd like to know the odds of that,' the raven snorted.

'The odds are extremely slim,' Junpei supplied, tapping away at the computer. 'Around that time there were only six signals, and only two were moving faster than average walking speed. That's-'

'We don't need to know,' Kouji snapped.

'All right. Sheesh, what's eating your bandana?'

'Nothing.'

'I highly doubt it's nothing.' Izumi raised an eyebrow.

'If you're channelling Takuya, kick him-'

'But Takuya-nii didn't do anything,' Tomoki interrupted, blinking with his slightly-larger-than-normal green eyes.

'Seriously,' the blonde sighed. 'What's bugging you Kouji?'

'I said nothing.'

'Doesn't sound like it,' she persisted, narrowing your eyes at him. 'Is everything okay at home.'

'Everything's _fine_,' the other said tersely.

Izumi opened her mouth again, but Junpei cut her off. 'It's not any of our business,' he said. 'If he hasn't told us already, then we should leave it alone.'

Kouji turned his face slightly as she looked at him, but after shooting the eldest of their team a glare that clearly indicated she was not happy by his words, complied to his request.

Tsubokura cleared his throat. 'Is there anything else?'

There were four shakes of heads.

'Scam then.'

…

He walked past a school. Students, all in their navy blue uniforms, were spilling onto the green lawn, still crisp and fresh even as autumn approached winter. They chattered, trading smiles and groans as they stemmed off from the collective in twos or threes or fours, each wondering off to their own destination.

Festivals were quite common in Japan, and there was another one stretching over the week. A lot of them were heading over there, passing him without a thought. Not that he could blame them. He could stand in front of them upon the stage, but he would never be anything more than a figurine, a thing to be looked at and admired. Off the stage, in his street clothes, he was just another person of billions in the world.

It was actually quite nice, following the crowd without a care, but there always had to be one. Part of him was listening, watching, _en garde_…

His shoulders felt stiff. He winced slightly, before flexing them slightly. It wouldn't do to get tense then. He'd be dancing soon.

There, on the stage (even if it was just a small square of asphalt or as large as the wooden stages in dance theatres he could only dream of), he could let himself free. He could fly without wings, jump without cares of boundaries, and spin fast enough to stop the world on its tilt. It was an amazing feeling, something he wouldn't trade for all the burden it brought with it.

And he was lucky in that aspect. Very lucky. Because if he couldn't dance, he had pretty much nothing to keep him sane.

Well, he had those depressants. But he'd go insane trying to prevent insanity if he constantly stuck to those. As it was, he was using them far more often than the kind woman who had rescued him had recommended.

She had been a…what was the word again?

Nurse. That was it. She had been a nurse. A nice one, even if she had been sad.

It had made his heart warm when she smiled at him. She had described it as happiness. She had said he made her happy. Like her own son.

The other lady had been happy too. She had been her mother. She had looked just like the old lady in the fairytale though, knitting away and making sweets that made his stomach grumble (even before he had understood what on earth that sound was). So he had called her grandmother.

She had smiled at him too. She had been happy.

It had been so simple for awhile. He had remembered nothing except being cold, then suddenly warm. But they had been kind. They had nursed him, raised him, taught him…

…and then, by some ill fate, his eyes started changing colour. He started doing strange things, vanishing to some strange place, seeing strange people, feeling strange things that frightened him.

And then, finally, he had remembered.

They had been snatches. Even after three years, it was only fragments. But those fragments were more than enough.

They hadn't cared. They'd helped instead. They taught him how to cook. How to talk (Korean first, then when he had mimicked the words he had heard in the other place as he had remembered, the older woman, Grandmother, had taught him Japanese too).How to count. And read a little. They had taken him places, shown him things. When it became unbearable, when he knew something bad was going to happen, they gave him depressants to calm him and ease his pain.

Ironically, the first place he had seen dancers were on the streets of a festival. And he had fallen in love with it.

The younger woman somewhere along the line became his mother.

But they were both gone, and it was just him. And the world they had shown him, and taught him to love. It was because of them really that those teenagers still walked around, laughing and talking.

It was a sad thought, but at the same time, a happy one. It had made Mother and Grandmother so happy to see other people smile and laugh and be full of joy.

It still felt warm. Even if it had nothing to do with him…

…until a ginger coloured cat suddenly leapt onto his head, tail tickling his head.

And he laughed. It was such a nice feeling. One he wished would last forever.

…

Kouji walked home alone. He always did, no matter who it was that offered…or tried to follow on occasion. Unless it was Ootami. But a dog was in an entirely different league to a human. Their brains were much smaller. They didn't possess the complex cognitive processes that the self-proclaimed dominant species were both blessed and cursed with.

He _was_ making an effort. Really, he was. It was just difficult to let someone in to the space that was reserved for his mother, and it irritated him how his father persisted to the point. All it did was make him disappointed, make _him_ angry, then guilty, then down-right muddled up, and it made Satomi sad to hear them arguing.

He had walked straight past the florist before be back-tracked, something catching his eye. As usual, there were roses arranged in vases and bouquets, and many other assortments that went to the heart of a woman, but it was the relatively straight black stalks that had caught his attention, small budding stemming off near the top and holding a few pale pink, mixed in with greener stems of white.

Cherry blossoms. He hadn't even realised Autumn was almost over.

'Would you like some help with anything?'

He spun around quickly, facing the cheery shop-keeper. She had come out of her shop without him even noticing.

'Ah, that's a beautiful one. But most people aren't interested in subtleties nowadays.' She sighed a little wistfully, before smiling at the off-white vase. 'Autumn's beauty really is subtle. The colours are pale and soft…' she inclined her head to the pale pink and white amidst all the colour. 'And yet they have meanings buried in themselves. It takes someone seeing past toe colour to notice it.'

The way she looked at him made him feel like she knew perfectly well he'd walked past her shop many a time before without even a backwards glance at her colourful display.

'I think you'd find if you came inside you would have found flowers more to your taste,' she said wryly, easily reading the expression…and not losing the opportunity for a customer. 'Something that will do your speaking for you.'

'I can talk for myself,' Kouji muttered, deciding to leave, before reconsidering. There was something…attractive, about those flowers, arranged as they were.

'How much for those?' he asked finally.

…

He let himself _flow_. It was so easy to get lost in the music, to forget the things that tied him down and instead fly as high as he wanted, move as fast or as slow as he wished, slowing or speeding up time itself.

There was no structure he had to enforce. He was just dancing in the street, following the patterns that had become almost natural. People walked past. Some stopped to watch. Crowds milled, dispersed. They gathered on the hill.

A drummer was beating drums. Around him were flashes of colour.

The fans went up and out as they all stopped…

And then fireworks lit up the sky, finishing the spectacle.

He took a break, taking off his mask and wiping his forehead, looking at the next burst of light.

'_Sempai!_ Come dance with us? _Please!_'

He looked down at the eight year old that had taken his hand, part of one of the older classes they had arranged from last year's dance festival. High school students (or rather, those of age to be in junior or senior high school) generally took the informal classes with the younger kids. It paid as well as any tutoring service, and ran about the same. Of course, it wasn't enough to live off, but it was enough to sustain between the bursts of activity during festivals and tourist seasons and the likes.

There were a few more milled around, all of which he recognised.

'Come on,' the boy pleaded again, eyes shining as the fireworks faded. 'Let's dance.'

He took the hand more firmly and offered his spare one to a shy girl hiding at the back.

She took it, her eyes brimming with tears.

And then they danced in a large ring around the tree on the hill until they all fell laughing to the ground.

It was that sort of thing, he mused, feeling the gentle wind ruffling his hair and caressing his face, that made it all worthwhile.

…

The first person he saw when he got home was Satomi. Which was awkward to say the least. He knew full well he had a bruise under his eye from the block that kid had thrown at him in a temper (he had just been unable to bring himself to block it). He knew full well he looked ridiculous carrying such a large and awkward package (luckily the florist had wrapped it for him). And he knew full well, if he had to explain what was _in_ that package, something was going to get scrambled somewhere.

'I made curry,' was all she said though. 'It's in the-'

She cut herself off as the other thrust the package at her.

'For you,' he muttered, before turning away with a rose-coloured blush on his cheeks.

Satomi blinked, then opened the package, carefully setting aside the wrapping paper. 'Oh _Kouji_…'

He was glad she thought better of hugging him.

'What's the occasion?'

He didn't look at her face, so he didn't see her expression.

'It's just that…well…' He hated it when he couldn't say what he felt.

Satomi looked at the flowers again, the pale pink and white. 'Flowers have such a beautiful language,' she said softly, fingering the brown stem. 'Is this your way of telling me something?

'They just called out to me.' Part of him was wishing he hadn't listed to that.

'Then I'm happy.'

He looked up at her shining eyes.

'I know I'll never take the place of your real mother, and I never meant to. But you have another space in your heart for me.'

And there, really, had been the root of the problem. It had sounded so _simple_. Figures some sappy flowers would finally make it crystal clear for him.

And him not wanting Satomi as a part of the family was starting to sound really idiotic in his head.

Actually, it had always sounded that way.

'And some apple pie for dessert?'

He blinked at that.

''tou-san doesn't like apple pie.'

'Yes, well he's getting punished for being late again so he'll have to deal with it.'

…

That night, there was another earthquake.

It was a tremor, so small that the perpetrator was gone by the time the epicentre was pinned down.

But it had happened. And just like any earthquake, it had shifted the plates.

The small sliver of the new moon shone in the sky, staring down at them.

…

_**End of Chapter 4**_

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Kouji's "friend" at the top is Gotsumon. Yeah, I love him. Too adorable. They have a very odd sort of relationship.

I've shifted Shinya's birthday and the anniversary of Kousei and Satomi so they have a few days between them. Therefore they fall on either side of the night where there is no moon (everyone gets a break). Just for convenience really.

_Sega_ is the colloquial way of saying sorry in Italian.

I don't know whether I mentioned this before but _en garde_ means "on your guard". I think it's French. It's sort of a martial arts phrase, but ours is more Korean/Japanese anyway.

Ryuusui Shiohi is pretty much the personification of Ofanimon, though like Tsubokura I've altered her character to suit the role. She is a scientist, but has a doctorate qualification, so she's earned the title "doctor". The surname Ryuusui means flowing water, and her first name, Shiohi, means low tide. There's a symbolism there that hits the root of her nature and the reason I gave the roles the way they are. Her speech, intention and even way of fighting were far more fluid and refined than Seraphimon. He seemed more forward and "straight-to-the-point". And she symbolised life out of the three angels, and water is seen in some circles as the liquid of life (more like sustaining, blood is also "liquid life" – Crimson Bloodied Depths. Anyone remember that crazy fic?)

I think I forgot to mention it, but this fic is largely inspired by Elfen Lied and Darker than Black…and my synthesis classes for chem. All the different ways you can put basic chemicals together to form other stuff.

The bio-institute is a research centre connected to the university. It's like that at Melbourne, so I'm assuming it's universal. All the main medical research in the country is done there.

The girl-Renegade who bites everything and has acid secreting saliva is based mostly of Gluttony from Fullmetal Alchemist, but is also meant to resemble dog traits so could be said to resemble digimon from Doggymon to Cerberusmon (I forgot the spelling of that one).

We got part of Kouichi's past this chapter. The next comes in…well, I intend for it to come in chapter 8. So far the plan's working out fine, but we'll see. It always gets messed up at some point or other. There hasn't been a plan yet that's been totally followed from the original draft of it…unless you want to count Silver Lining.

Cherry blossoms/Sakura flowers symbolise kind/gentle in flower language. It was more the subtlety of the speech than the speech itself that attracted Kouji.

The dance in the ring at the end is like Ring a Ring of Rosies. Remember that one?

Earthquakes can symbolise shifting of earth in a metaphorical sense as well as a physical one. Anyone read Haruki Murakami's After the Quake? He's a Japanese author. I've alluded to his book a few times already.

We're back into the fighting next chapter…I think. Depends on the length really.

I don't know what was wrong with the spaces. Words kept on mushing together. Hopefully it won't do it a fourth time.

And that's it for this chappie. Tell me what you think. :)


	5. Humanity

…

_**THE LION IN THE SKY**_

…

_**Chapter 5**_

_**Humanity**_

…

'…another tremor rocked the district of Kamakura…epicentre located three miles off the coast….just past the Shichirigahama shore….'

He groaned, burying his head into the mat he was spread out on. He didn't have all that much in the way of furniture, so no matter how much he rolled around, the odds of him crashing into something that wasn't a wall were very slim. It wasn't particularly he couldn't afford it; he could…sometimes. But he was a dancer. Having unnecessary furniture was rather a liability when it came to movement (especially when the place was already small), and if his safe-haven was ever compromised like it had been in Korea…he could clear out easily enough.

It was basically just one room with a small adjoint bathroom. No bath. Some people called it a box, and rather accurately so. There was a sink in the bathroom, and along one wall a few cupboards and a gas-burner stove tucked in one corner. A few power-point plugs and a single light bulb. He didn't spend a whole lot of time there…except for sleeping, so it didn't really matter.

The main disadvantage was that the walls were joint to other people's…well, homes really. And the radio next door was blaring rather loud.

There was a bang echoing; the neighbour on the other side, he mused, as there was some cursing and then the volume switched off. He was more or less awake though. There was no hope of falling back asleep once you started thinking.

He sat up, blinking blurrily at the plain walls and the equipment plugged in a corner. It was basic signal blocking, but it was only because of that that he could sleep safely, and unfortunately the depressants which he might not have hated so much if he had a normal upbringing…but it was far better than being poked at least six or eight times a day with blunt needles.

Still, if he didn't have them…

He sighed and flopped down again as he registered the sound of rain patting on the roof. It was one of _those_ nights.

Nrrgh…it felt like he had only slept for five minutes. It should have been at least three hours though...including all the time he had just stared restlessly up at the ceiling.

He gave up again after a few minutes.

…

Chiaki looked up at the rain-clouds, her head bopping on the sea water and brown hair spilling all around her. It was remarkable, and very well strange, that her hair never got damaged by the amount of salt and chloride and other molecules and ions contained in the sea water. Molecules and ions that would make any other girl's hair look stringy and limp. On the down side, while her skin looked almost golden out of the water, it turned an aqua colour with contact. The amount of contact depended on the power she had at her disposal.

When it was raining like this, it wouldn't matter where she was. She could almost imagine the looks and whispers now.

An ugly scowl appeared on her beautiful face as she swam back to shore and pulled herself out of the water.

'Here.' Someone set a towel on her shoulders and held an umbrella over her head as she dried off.

'Thank you,' she said gratefully, watching the tall boy, two years her senior, soak up the water that fell onto his own head. 'You're looking better.'

'I feel better,' he admitted. 'There hadn't been rain in so long I was starting to look a hundred and ten.' There was extreme bitterness clinging to those words.

'Rain water is nothing like sea water,' the girl said, twisting her hair to get as much water as she could out. It wouldn't do to wonder around the streets until she was fully dry. As it was, keeping herself out of the rain would be almost impossible with the way it was starting to pour down. She could use it, manipulate it, but it wouldn't help her heal and be alive.

In the sea, she could let go of everything, because it kept her secrets and cared for her.

On the land, it was only Katsuharu and Teppei. And for them, it was only her.

If they hadn't met so long ago, on a day where the town had flooded and saved two of them from a death they would have gladly accepted if the suffering had been bearable enough to be accepted. But it seemed life was a thing cursed to them, and the bitterness grew as they watched their own powers crash upon the land…and watched the land rise above it, leaving them to crawl about like ants but always side-stepping the things that could put them out of their misery.

They couldn't kill themselves. Or each other. The cursed organ called a heart prevented all that. And their powers. Her dominion over water clotted blood before it seeped too far away from the body. Katsuharu's plant matter dealt with the poisons. Not that she hadn't tried. Teppei's earth kept the ground under their feet.

And they had to suffer the consequences before that. For both her and the elder, life was unbearable without water. Her skin burned horribly if it didn't soak, and when it became damaged like _those_ lasers, it burned both ways. His dried and cracked off, becoming wrinkled, and when he got too dry, all stiff and coagulated. It really was a slow, painful, and rather impossible way to die. The blood would take an age in drying completely and killing him.

As for Teppei, his body swelled horribly. The saddest part was that his intellect suffered too; at thirteen he was still a child in soul, barely able to talk in full sentences and crying at every failure. It truly was sad to watch him blunder around trying to please them. Trying to chase after the one person who could put them out of their misery.

Them, and the entire cursed world which was screwed beyond comprehension. Then maybe God would build a better one. One where they wouldn't be cursed through no fault of their own.

'Where is he?' she asked.

'At the park,' the other replied. 'Building little ant nests.'

The only reason they weren't like that was because the sea took away hers and the water in the plants his. They were lucky. They had the absorbatory sort of traits.

One would think the water in the earth would suck away the degradation too. But soil _was_ degradation. Plants grew. And as for the sea, it was so magnificent that no-one yet had touched the bottom.

She had a feeling though she was getting there.

A droplet of water fell on her hand, and she stared as the skin turned aqua again.

It looked ugly. _Ugly_!

Katsuharu put a hand over her's, covering the sight.

'Forget it,' he said.

'When all the plants in the world die, what will you do?' was the reply she gave.

'I hope before then my luck changes and I die.'

Their luck did change, as it so happened. But not in the way they had expected.

…

'Oh God, can't these adults understand how hard we're worked?' Takuya yawned as he headed away from the LWO headquarters, Izumi, Junpei and Tomoki with him. The latter two actually had the night off (lucky them), but as their homes were in the direction he was going in, they tagged along. As for Izumi, the fastest way to her destination was actually to cut through the park…seeing as it was raining cats and dogs and she couldn't well fly.

The brunette yawned again, not bothering to stifle it. There were two reasons really. Firstly the detention he'd managed to acquire, and secondly, it was one of those double-shifts for him. Izumi and Kouji (on the other side of the city) were lucky. They'd had the night off. He'd be getting the next night…provided someone didn't get sick or injured. Truthfully, that very rarely happened.

'It figures,' he continued to complain, kicking at puddles in a rather immature way. 'We'll get soaked, probably all adopt colds, and nothing will happen again.'

'They've been plenty of nights where something's happened,' Izumi pointed out, holding her pink umbrella over your head. 'And if you had brought your umbrella, it wouldn't be-' She was cut off by a shriek as Takuya accidently kicked a puddle of water into a girl passing with a boy in the other direction.

After a few seconds, the reason she had shrieked had become obvious, as her skin had turned an ugly aqua.

'What in the-?' The pyrokinetic was so busy gaping that it hadn't even occurred to him to apologize…which probably would have been the better course of action.

The girl's face twisted into an odd sort of expression, something between hurt, pain and anger. The boy's face beside her didn't change as drastically, but there was a wooden quality to his expression as he lifted an arm.

The next second, Takuya was flying backwards, feeling like he had been punched in the gut.

Tomoki managed to catch a glimpse of the next fist and tried to freeze it with the help of the water…only for the brunette girl to cast the umbrella away. The next moment, his skin was burning where the water droplets fell.

Izumi hissed, extending her insectoid wings (it was too much to hope for she'd be able to fly with the other ones) and flapping hard to kick off the ground before extending her arms, feeling the wind at her fingertips.

The brunette sent another jet of water which was met by a blast of electricity from Junpei, backed up by Tomoki's ice so the electrons didn't shoot every and electrocute the whole lot of them as well. Izumi's wind blew and dried the water droplets before the acid rain fell on them all.

Funny how it took four of them to handle two Renegades. Takuya was trying to set the other guy on fire, but the rain was making it rather difficult.

'Izumi?'

'Busy with the rain,' she yelled back.

'Leave it for a sec.'

'Oh, all right.'

She did, using the time to fan the water away from his flames, and the jet of fire shot towards the other…before being blocked by a surge of water which had literally been sucked out of the air.

So the girl was definitely a water manipulator. That was rather troublesome. Especially with a fire user, a lightning user and an ice user.

'Would someone call Kouji?' Junpei yelled.

Unfortunately, they were all a little busy…until their quarry suddenly left them.

Izumi let the rain drench her, before shrieking and blowing it away again. It was still raining acid rain, even if something had caught the other's attention.

For a moment she stared at something, or someone, behind the pair, then she launched a tidal-wave of water which was blasted apart by a red energy beam.

'Curse you,' she screamed, and suddenly her expression was wild, brown hair billowing in the wind caused by the blonde's prowess. 'You have no right to keep it to yourself when other people _need_ it! You're not even a human!'

She sent another bout of water, and this time the other sent his extended fists too, and the figure dodged the latter and blasted the former again.

'I _am_ a human!'

The next moment, the four from LWO were completely forgotten as the (apparently) three Renegades got into a 2 on 1 fight.

'Should we do something?' Tomoki asked, blankly watching. 'Aren't we supposed to be apprehending Renegades?'

'You want to try all three of them?' Junpei asked sceptically.

'Oh, what the heck,' Takuya shrugged. 'It's easier than just two.'

'How'd you figure that one out?'

But he was already summoning fire in his fists, sending them into the fray where they dodged and blocked each other's attacks.

Or rather, the singular blocked and dodged the plurals. The only time he was using his laser beams was to evaporate the water streams.

So it was to everybody's shock when the fire fists suddenly hit a shield on his arm and diverted their path…hitting the guy with the extendable fists.

'What the hell?' he cursed, before firing some sort of storm that tore the leaves off the trees.

The latest addition took that moment to spin with the blade, lunging straight for the other guy's heart.

Tomoki's eyes widened. Izumi muffled a shriek. The brunette stopped attacking when she had a clear shot at the other's back in order to save her friend…

And _he_, he vaulted over the other figure, and he went flying back, blasted with something no-one had seen.

With a snarl the girl lunged at him, and the two danced again, too fast for anyone to see, too fast to even be able to hit as the rain and the darkness of the night seemed to cover them like a shield.

'We should really do something.'

'Like what?' Junpei asked, a little exasperatedly. 'They're going too fast, and both of them look like they're fighting to kill.'

'I don't think so,' Izumi said, her sharper eyes picking out how easily the blade had missed. 'He could have gotten the stab in, so why didn't...uurgh…he?'

She stumbled a bit on those last words, sinking a few paces as her head began to reel. The moon wasn't strong enough for her to keep blowing the rain away much longer.

'Izumi?' Junpei cried. 'We have to stop this rain!'

Takuya looked at Tomoki. Tomoki shrugged. He looked at Junpei. He shrugged too.

'The water makes my electric attacks useless without help,' he said. 'And Tomoki's ice is just going to slow it down. And since ice is made up of water, he's no good.'

'Guess it's me then.'

Fire formed around his fists again, but this time in smaller bursts which he fired as darts into the fray. Luckily both parties had been so distracted that the little balls of fire wound of striking them both…but while it dampened one, it dampened the one who was less of a concern.

The water wielder got even more enraged, to the point where they couldn't even understand what she was shrieking.

It ended after a few seconds though. Another blast of energy sent her on top of the other fallen and the third fell to his knees in the clearing rain, black seeping from his clothes, or himself, into the water. Perhaps that was what was stopping his skin from burning.

The four exchanged glances, before Takuya marched straight up to the guy with a protest trailing behind him, leaving an exhausted Izumi in Junpei's capable hands.

Even he had the sense to stop short though when the other shot up, twisting his arm behind his back and pressing the blade to his neck.

'You're not going to make me do anything,' the voice hissed at him, the tone laced with fatigue, lack of breath and strain but still carrying an accent to it.

His mind, at that point, went completely blank.

And then he was flying forward, meeting the ground in a heart-lurching reunion.

Somewhere in the distance, the earth started to shake.

…

_**End of Chapter 5**_

**A/N:** Shichirigahama (mouthful, isn't it?) is the main beach that's pretty much in Kamakura. It's the one that Chiaki and our nameless earth element were at (they're both brunettes after all, but I think Teppei more likely because he's shorter).

The composition of rain and sea water is different. Fairly moot point, but important in this context. The salt concentration in sea water could kill land plants.

There are various means of control. Some are drugs. Some are meditation. Those are universal. And the technology in the jackets that LWO has developed. Then there are others that depend on the power the Talent has. Some people like Chiaki and Katsuharu (and Izumi and Takuya for that matter) can use their elemental sympathies to syphon the flow of power and therefore the degradation of their own souls/brains, but there are side-effects and consequences. As for Chiaki, she's reaching the limit of her syphoning. Then you've got unfortunate people like Teppei and Gotsumon who possess elements that symbolise degredation and therefore cannot take the symphony. Then there are those like Junpei and Tomoki who have rather seasonal elements so they can't siphon either. The twins are a special case. They always are. Has anyone figured out why yet though? I'll give you a hint. It's to do with the heart everybody's searching for.

This takes place between the new moon and its full face. The night of the full moon is coming up though.

Here's where the first main fight starts. Sorry it's kind of short. Actually, it's not. It was the last few chapters that were rather long. This is actually the length I originally intended, give or take a couple of hundred words.

The ending will be made clearer in the following chapter.

The uni computers gave me a lot of grief over this chapter. Lost it twice because it just automatically shut down for no reason. Trust me to wind up with the dysfunctional one…at least I wasn't doing a test. _That_ would be a disaster.


	6. Face of Truth

…

_**THE LION IN THE SKY**_

…

It _would_ be just his luck to bump into those two, he grumbled to himself, trying to avoid the stronger bursts of acid water flying at him, accompanied by leaves and projectile fists. He was lucky they were on cement at that point, otherwise he'd be getting roots too.

And he had been hoping for some peace and quiet at the park. Perhaps he would have gotten it, if he had passed through the square a little earlier…or a little later. But as usual, Lady Luck decided to give him a dose of her fury.

What in the world had he done? Besides being born that is.

Worse than that scenario was that Chiaki (he didn't know her last name, nor did anyone really know his so they couldn't help but be on first-name basis with each other) for once in her life (as far as he knew anyway, which was only that she cared about the way she looked and she manipulated water, generally turning it acidic) did not seem to care how she looked, or what his lasers did to her skin. Instead, she seemed hell bent on returning the favour.

Which made things far more difficult, because that made it harder to get away. Especially since there was that fire guy, along with the blonde who was apparently a wind user and two complete strangers. He didn't know exactly what _they_ wanted, but it was only one thing every Talent he had ever encounter wanted from him.

And he couldn't even find an opening to teleport the hell out of there.

'It's not fair,' she shrieked at him, her expression quite deranged as she shot another blast of water, which he quickly parried. 'You have no right-'

'I have every right,' he yelled back, trying to work up enough power to make a blast that would actually do something more than just shield him…but finding an opening was almost impossible. 'It's my mind, my body and _my_ choice!'

…

_**Chapter 6**_

_**Face of Truth**_

…

For a moment, she lay stunned. It easily stretched to two, then three. Rain pattered on her face, though it was starting to ease up. Fresh rain. Saltless rain.

Useless rain, except as a tool to manipulate. If only she was near the sea, then she could show them the wrath of an ocean spirit.

But a tool was a tool. And _no-one_ was going to deny her the one thing she strove after in life.

It wasn't _fair_. If she had that sort of power, she would have stopped feeling years ago. To not have a heart, to not have to feel the consequences…she could have destroyed the world and felled its population in a single swoop.

But no.

Whatever he saw in the world, she didn't know. And she would never know. All she saw was a wasteland tainted with slime. Ants crushing other ants, crippling them but forcing them to march on with more than their back's worth of weight.

She saw him twist around and grab the other. Causing the rest to freeze. Fools, she thought. If it were one of her boys, they'd _want_ her to continue. A single blast, if she could generate enough might, or one of the others, would be enough to kill them. Theoretically they wouldn't even be aiming for him. It was perfect. Almost perfect anyway.

But those fools didn't even consider it. They did absolutely nothing.

And he was going to teleport. He wouldn't stay. He wouldn't kill them all. It was a twisted mercy, utterly cruel.

So she would have to.

The water hurtled forward with the force of a canon.

…

'Oww, what the heck happened?' Takuya muttered, rubbing his head and spitting up dirt and mud as he clawed his way back to his feet. 'Yuck.'

Where had the mud come from anyway?'

'Takuya? Are you okay?' Tomoki yelled.

'Sure, I'm fine,' he yelled back, before ducking as a fist almost decapitated his head.

_I thought those guys were knocked out_!

The next moment, someone was brushing at his jacket.

'Your mother is going to kill you,' Izumi's voice muttered in his ear. 'If Tsubokura-san doesn't kill you first.'

'Are you-'

'I'm fine.' She sighed a little nasally. 'Honestly Takuya.'

'Hey, you had that wind going for quite a while,' he said in his defence, ducking again. Beside him, Izumi ducked too, before his arm could pull her down actually, and another fist flew over their heads.

'Maybe we should-'

'Uh…yeah.' For some reason he couldn't understand, she was blushing.

'Hey you two lovebirds,' Junpei yelled, unable to help feeling a little jealous despite everything. 'Get on your date _after_ we've taken care of these two.'

'We're not dating!' the pair yelled in unison, before they both took flight again.

...

He thudded along, not even aware of the tremors that his feet left. In the distance, he could see angry clouds swirling. He knew who they belonged to.

Nobody hurt her. Hurt them.

He would make them pay.

…

Kouji tapped his foot a little impatiently. A lot of the time these jobs were pretty boring. Staring at inanimate buildings and the occasional passer-by all night long.

He had brought his laptop along with him. Hopefully the battery would last; perhaps he could get his essay done while he was watching. Sometimes he managed. Other times, he got interrupted.

He had only typed in a single word when the second was proven correct, and he was blinking a little open-mouthed at the boy who suddenly appeared before hm.

The first thing he noticed was the odd sigma running down one eye to take up his right cheek. The mark ran under the eyelid, curving up then dropping down with two longer lines of the same length. Within the rectangle that could be drawn of the lines were connected at the bottom, there were two circles. The bottom one had a dot on it. It was smudged, as if some sort of makeup had been covering it, but with the way the rain was pouring down (there was a good reason he was sitting in a bus shelter), it had long since washed off.

The second thing he noted was the gleaming red blade, jagged and curved, in a bloodied grip.

The other's eyes had barely flickered before instinct kicked in and sent a blue laser shooting out from both his eyes as he abandoned his computer and shelter, readying himself for a counter-attack that was bound to come.

Bound to maybe, but it hadn't come when he had expected.

What happened next left him further confused.

…

The ground started shaking like crazy, and Junpei summoned out his wings too, picking Tomoki up by the waist and ferrying him off to Takuya who had the strongest flight capacity, even if he was the least experienced. In any case, he was the only one who could manage a passenger without breaking his back. Both their wings were just two fragile.

The water-girl and the flying-fist-boy didn't move, but they didn't need to. No matter how the rest of the ground shook, the foundations beneath their feet didn't seem to budge.

When a boy that was familiar only to the pair of them and Takuya appeared, they realised why. Because the first thing he did was run at the pair with thudding feet and hug them.

'Get off you lump of fat,' the taller and older boy muttered, but there was no malice in the tone. In fact, one could even go so far as to say that was his way of showing affection…which might have been have no strings of exaggeration attached.

'Hurt,' the other boy wailed. Which was true. Everyone present was scratched up a little and sprouting burns, whether that be from the acid rain or the fire. They may have even crossed at some point or other.

Then he scowled and pulled out a hammer from the earth.

'What the-?' was all Takuya managed before Tomoki turned into a frigid ice stature to stop his surrogate older brother from getting his head knocked off.

The mental image stuck around little longer.

'Aargh. I am so totally not greed buddy,' he muttered to himself, before turning to the defrosting boy. 'Thanks for the save.'

'No problem,' he replied. 'But uh-'

The hammer was swinging their way again.

'Oh yeah,' the pyro retorted. 'You want some of this.'

He hit it head on with a flaming tsunami, which was shot with a jet of water…which was parried by a blast of ice, punched through with a wooden fist and blocked by a thunder one.

They had never fought so many Renegades at once, and it showed. Subduing them without hurting them was turning out to be entirely impossible.

…

The boy groaned before crawling to his knees. He had pretty much teleported on instinct, simply thinking about the other side of the city.

Well, he was definitely there. But he hadn't been planning on the company. Another Talent by the looks, or rather, the feel of things.

'Damn Lady Luck,' he muttered to himself in Korean. 'Can't you catch me a break?'

He winced as he felt blood running down the side of his face and raised a seared arm to it.

Then he raised his head up, and met an almost identical face.

'You're…'

It was the boy he always saw, every time he was in Japan. With that dog that grew up so fast, yapping at his ankles one second and tripping him up the next. With the older man with dark hair beginning to grey and glasses on the bridge of his nose. With the woman with brown hair with a strong yet sad look on her face.

He just stared dumbly for a moment.

…

Kouji stared. It was entirely uncharacteristic for him, but he just couldn't help it. Despite the blood that was starting to run down the other's face (he would probably feel guilty about that later), the shade of eye colour that was suddenly seemed more brown than it had a minute ago, and the mark on his cheek that marked him as a Talent, their faces could have been identical. Already, the rain was washing the blood off; it looked to be a simple flesh wound, unlike the hand that left a print on the asphalt as it unconsciously moved to get a better grip.

'Who are you?' he asked bluntly.

'I…er…' The eyes flickered again, before he clutched the shirt over his heart, completely drenched by the rain. The thin layer of darkness that had been protecting him had gone, and not even the rain could keep the layer of sweat off his skin. No doubt he'd be less tired in a while, but he always found it eerie how the rest of his body seemed exhausted and yet his heart still beat strong. It had been enough to carry him across the ocean, alive.

And somehow, he felt the usual name wasn't going to cut it. It was just what people called him, starting from the kind women who had given it to him. But it wasn't his name. It wasn't who he was.

It didn't explain a thing. Not why he was drawn to that boy in particular, or perhaps to the dog or one of the adults he assumed to be his parents.

The situation was becoming as clear as mud.

'I don't know,' he admitted finally, breathing deeply and finally managing to get to his feet. The blade disintegrated; it had been old anyway, and he was bleeding enough to form a new one. Of course, he didn't want to lose too much blood, but there was a possibility he wouldn't even be needing it.

'Well…' The answer was evidently not good enough. But as he was obviously a Renegade, it might have been a part of his power. That was the most logical explanation.

He flipped the lid on his watch, revealing the communicator. 'Tsubokura-san?'

'I'm here Minamoto-kun,' came the staticky reply.

The other froze. He didn't recognise the voice, but the static…

'_That's it. Bring him in and keep testing him. He's almost there, and then the entire world will fall at his rage and power. And nothing will stop him!_'

'I've got another Renegade,' Kouji

'Bring him in-' Tsubokura started, but the rest of his message was lost.

'No,' the other burst out, cutting off the transmission as his eyes turned red and lasers, almost identical to the blue eyes except differing in colour, shot out. One missed completely, but the other seared the watch straight off his wrist and knocked it to the ground where it spluttered and died.

He gritted his teeth, breaths coming out harder as he could feel his back searing, wings trying to escape. But he wouldn't let them. He _couldn't_.

It was still so far from a full moon. So _why..?_

'What the hell?' Kouji asked, rubbing his wrist before narrowing his eyes. 'You can't fight me and win.'

'If I have to, I will,' the other replied, summoning another blade from the bleeding hand as the other drew one made entirely of light.

The other made to knock the blade out of his hands, but he twisted away and parried.

Years of dancing payed off, even when pitted against someone well accomplished in the martial arts.

…

It was the twister that had turned out to be the main problem. A mix of earth, water and wood, and only their combined powers were managed to block it in the end, but they almost all got shocked in the process, thanks to the rain.

Actually, Tomoki did get shocked, but that was more because of the fog that had suddenly covered them, making it difficult to aim.

And by the time the fog cleared, the three Renegades were gone.

Tomoki promptly sat down, pale and clammy. Izumi followed suit, having overtaxed her powers.

Takuya was tempted to follow, but he had wound up falling onto Junpei, the elder quickly supporting him.

'The moon couldn't have been bigger,' he complained, looking up at the thin sliver.

'If it had been,' Junpei pointed out. 'We might have been worse off. Bigger disproportion.'

Being the oldest and most experienced, as well as the one who was the most useless because of the rain, he alone was still in a reasonably good condition.

'Better tell Kouji, and Tsubokura-san. He's not going to be happy.'

More that they got away than _they_ let him get away. He'd probably understand the difficulty of subduing them without mortally injuring them. Normally, it took three of them to take down a singular without harm. Four on three with the disadvantageous elements (except wind and to an extent, ice) was hopeless.

But when he tried contacting Kouji, the connection failed to go through.

'Hold on.' Takuya exclaimed suddenly, taking a few steps forward stubbornly before his knees threatened to cave in on him. 'Where's the other guy?'

He was pretty mad, but also confused.

But still. He was _not_ a hostage. You just didn't go around twisting his arm behind his back and pressing a blade to him.

And although he wouldn't admit it, he was pretty embarrassed too.

…

'Kuso!' Chiaki cursed, punching the water and causing it to fly up and splash a bird some distance away. 'Kuso! Kuso! Kuso!' Each word was punctured by another fist slamming into the sheet, dispelling the hydrogen bonding between the molecules with its sheer force.

'Relax,' Katsuharu sighed, stepping into the sea water, feeling the concentration of salt plaguing it. The sea was churning, wailing, crying out…

So was the girl with the prowess over it.

'We'll get him next time.'

She shivered, dropping under the water. When she spoke, her voice was distorted, echoing strangely.

'We have to. I don't think I can take this anymore.'

Then she screamed in anger and frustration under the water. No normal person would have been able to speak without inhaling water. But she…

…she had grown aqua skin, gills and a pair of fins. Perfectly adapted to living under water.

If only she hadn't been a human for the first ten years of her life. Then perhaps she could have lived her life in the sea.

The water churned around her, feeling her turmoil.

…

Kouji wasn't quite sure who was fighting who or why. He was just determined not to give the other an opening to get away. Hopefully Tsubokura would tell the others when the transmission cut off and send them to help. Not that he should have needed it, but it was always harder to subdue without injuring. No Renegade had ever stayed still long enough to hit them with a tranquiliser too. So the extra help was necessary.

Though he had to admit, if they were fighting to kill each other, no doubt he'd be sprouting some major injuries. As to the other, he had no idea.

But he just _wouldn't_ stay still!

Another red laser collided with blue, and he took the blind-spot opportunity to try and pin him to the wall…just to get hit by another laser.

'That's…impossible,' he coughed, ducking under another laser.

Dammit. If he didn't get his sight back or stand up and do _something_ soon, the other was going to vanish again. Teleport probably. It was the only way he could think of to explain him appearing like that suddenly.

Then a rather familiar voice cut through the haze. But of all the arrivals he had been expecting, his father had definitely not been one of them.

'Kouji! Kouichi! Both of you stop!'

He was so shocked that he forgot to blink…until his eyes started burning.

His mind was working furiously though. What did his father know about the strange Renegade with his face?

* * *

><p>…<p>

_**End of Chapter 6**_

**A/N: **And now I'm halfway…after all that? Wow. I hope that doesn't mean the lengths are going to get screwed up for the other half. They're already starting to shrink, but that was because the fight had to stretch across more than two entire chapters. Actually, it's more I got a bit carried away with some of the other ones. This is about the length of chapter 1.

Both twins can shoot lasers out of their eyes. Cool huh? But the downside is you go blind for a moment. But Kouichi, as Duskmon, had more than two eyes. In this fic it's a part of his mutations. Like his eyes changing colour. Those colours are actually symbolic, but that will be clearer in the chapters to come.

Ah yes, forgot about Greed there. Another Homunculi in Fullmetal Alchemist. He's got the Ultimate Shield.


	7. Familial Love

…

_**THE LION IN THE SKY**_

…

'Kouichi?' he repeated, testing the name against his lip. 'Shin. _Daemeolisuli. Cheosbeonjjae_.' Then he repeated the name the other had used again. 'Kouichi.'

It felt…well, it felt almost…right.

'Kouichi.' He said again.

'Kouichi,' the man said again, taking a step closer, looking between one boy and the other. Then he closed his eyes. Two shopping bags lay abandoned a few feet behind, half illuminated by a second streetlight. 'Kouji, please stop.'

Kouji stared at his father. 'Who is he?' he half-yelled.

His answer shocked them both. 'He's your twin.'

…

_**Chapter 7**_

_**Familial Love**_

…

_She went into labour too suddenly and too early. Very early in her seventh month in fact. Neither of them had been prepared at all; he had been putting curtains up in the spare room that had gradually turned into a nursery, and she had been bringing him up a snack, despite his protests._

_She had laughed heartily when he claimed he could cook for himself._

_ 'You'd burn the entire kitchen and not even have one edible bite at the end of it,' she pointed out, handing him a steaming cup of tea and some muffins. They'd ate together, getting back onto the subject of names as she touched her bulging stomach._

_ 'I wonder if every mother feels this way,' she said, laying her palm flat and savouring the feeling of her babies squirming around in their confined space. Somehow, she had expected more of a ruckus. 'They already know how to share. I know they're going to be adorable.'_

_ 'Anything from you will be adorable,' Kousei said honestly, and his wife flicked him with her finger._

_ 'But the names,' she mused. 'They have to be perfect. But nothing seems…' _

_ 'Well, I've been thinking,' her husband admitted. 'And forgive my masculine lack or artistry, but I was wondering, how about Kouichi and Kouji?'_

_ 'Kouichi and Kouji,' his wife repeated, before she burst out laughing. 'It's so simple, and we've been racking our brains for something complicated._

_ 'So…it works?'_

_ 'No doubt someone somewhere along the line will comment on the masculine touch, but I can't think of anything better. Our little light children.'_

_She stood and picked up the tray and mug to take them downstairs. Two steps to the door though,it suddenly fell from her hands and crashed._

_Kousei leapt up and caught her as she clutched her stomach in pain._

…

_The next few hours were some of the longest of his life. He paced anxiously, unable to know how his wife was going, unable to know if something was wrong or she had simply given birth prematurely, until a doctor finally called him over._

_He almost had a heart attack when he saw his twins. His precious sons, joined together and sharing only a single heart between them._

_That was one of the hardest defects to manage, the Doctor explained. Because there is only one heart, even if we operate and are successful in separating them, only one will survive. If we leave them the way they are however, neither will live for more than a few days.'_

_It was one of the hardest things he had to listen to, knowing that either way, he would lose one of his sons for good._

_The worst was when he gave the rest of the news._

…

_Kaori had fallen unconscious during the childbirth, coming to rather blurrily to see his face._

_ 'Kouichi?' she asked weakly. 'Kouji? Are they-?'_

_He didn't even get a chance to explain. And she never got to say goodbye to her sons._

…

_It had taken sixteen surgeons and 25 hours, but eventually they had succeeded in separating the twins, implanting the tiny foetal heart where it was more strongly attached before reconstructing the absent matter of the chest with combinations of plastic surgery and implantation. The other's brain activity had ceased within the next minute, blue eyes blank and dead. They hadn't even tried to save him. How could they? There was only one heart, and their job was to save as many lives as they could. Or attempt to. In this case, it was just the one._

_The other pair were closed. He was still breathing on the resuscitator. His heart was still thumping with the help of machinery. It took weeks before his heart could thump on its own and maintain the blood-flow around his tiny body. Smaller than usual, because of the joint and premature birth._

…

_In the end, there was only one funeral. He alone prayed for the dead son; they had never told anyone about him, and now they never would. The mother had taken the secret to the grave with her, and so young babies, barely a two day old, didn't get a grave of their own._

_All there was was the name signed on a sheet of paper and recorded. All the proof he had ever existed._

_Except for the place in his heart. Because he watched his other son grow up, by some twist of fate it had been the younger to survive, and he thought about the elder. It contradicted in a rather cruel way the old lingered while the youth died. But at the same time it complemented the words. He was still alive, but he had lost both a wife and a son._

_But he still had another son. And he would cling to him like the roots of a tree clung to the earth they grew in._

…

Kouji was…well, he was struck speechless.

'You-you never told _me_?' he spluttered. 'Didn't you think I had a right to know?' Then the implications suddenly struck him, and his voice rose an octave. 'How can you call _him_Kouichi?' He pointed at the other boy who was as shaken up as he. 'You can't honestly be telling me that-I don't know.' He laughed almost derisively, not even noticing the pressure starting to build up at the back of his head.

It was always a bad thing to lose control of your emotions. Especially when you were a Talent and it could essentially drive you mad.

'How do I know you're not making it all up?' he demanded, torn between mad, derisively amused and, well, shocked.

'Would I do that?' Kousei asked sorrowfully, still staring at the other. 'How can you-?' His face softened, almost sagged with age. 'Kouichi?'

'Stop that!' Kouji shouted at him, before suddenly turning to the other and summoning up an afterimage that raged with blue light, much to the shock of everyone standing witness. Because of that, the other hadn't even the time to react before the energy hit him. The innate darkness within him flared without his attention, attacking the light particles as they touched his skin, diffusing them.

He wanted to tear them apart. Destroy them. Disintegrate them. And the one who had dared make him work for his prey…

No! He clutched his head as a sudden pain seized him. No! He wanted a normal life. A family. Dreams. Happiness. He didn't want to take the world away. He wanted to be a part of it. Belong in it.

'You!' the light controller shrieked, looking nothing like his element. 'How dare you-it's all your fault!'

'Are you going to kill me?' he just asked quietly, and the other froze. 'Without knowing anything? I could just be an innocent bystander, somehow distantly related. If you go back far enough we do, after all, we do come from the same parents.'

It was the first words that had done it. The blood stopped raging in his brain. His breathing almost stopped, as did his heart, before they started beating again.

It felt so heavy suddenly. Knowing someone else was dead because he was blessed with it.

He looked at his father, who had both arms outstretched but had stopped in his position, hovering unsure.

'I-I don't understand. I-' He looked between them. 'tou-san, is it true?'

'It is.'

'But-' He looked at the other. 'And you?'

The other climbed to his feet again, his own heart thudding calmly, making him shiver…or not his own; that was obvious simply by the way it felt, if one chose to ignore the mess it had caused with his DNA. 'Hell if I know,' he muttered, his accent heavier than usual. 'I can't tell you what happened when I was a baby, but I do know I don't have a human heart.' He clutched his chest, still cold. Still frozen. 'It's…a bird of some sort. _Daemeolisuli_.'

He could feel his eyes going red.

'I have it because I hadn't had a normal heart. I was perfect, with the cavity ready-made, with the mutations that gave me my Talent power and were already manifesting. It took years to do, and longer still before I understood the things they talked about in my presence. Basically I'm a bomb that can self-destruct and destroy everything. Everything you hold dear. This entire world. I never understood that. I _knew_ it, but never understood why I should have to do that. It never made any sense. Because I didn't have a heart, not mine, just an animal one who only knew how to hunt and feed and destroy…and you know what the truly sad part is?' It was almost rhetorical, and what made it even more stirring was the entire speech had been given in a monotone.

'Kouichi…'

'Don't call me that!' He suddenly shrieked. 'I'm not your son! I can't be. Your son is _dead_!'

'You just said it yourself.' His voice was almost weak, pathetic. 'I didn't think…animal DNA is compatible with humans.'

'I get it,' Kouji said slowly. 'That's what causes the deterioration with Talents. It's because there was animal DNA in the mutative virus. The DNA incorporated with all of ours, so when we were born we had combinations of the DNA of our parents and of whatever animal, or animals were used. That's also what causes the physical deformities.' He touched his nose, feeling the cold beneath his fingers. When had the snout changed? 'And the girl who has to bite something, almost like a one who squirts liquid from everywhere. A squid, or an octopus. Izumi's wings. Junpei's…like a beetle. Takuya's dragon wings and tail. My own…'

Then something else hit him.

'You have to be,' he realised. 'Those…spores only impregnated the people there within a few seconds. Just the people who were at the conference. The birth records-the chances-'

He didn't really know what to think. The uncontrollable surge was gone, but he still seemed to be tethering somewhere.

The clouds drifted over the moon.

…

To be honest, he didn't know whether he wanted to kill the other or protect him. He seemed almost torn in two; he'd always thought his parents had abandoned him because he hadn't been a human. Because he had been a monster. But here was this man crying in front of him, reliving a decision that had been made purely by chance.

He'd always wished someone would take him away from that horrible place. And he'd finally been free, he'd go where his heart pulled him and watched the family, relatively happy like any normal group with its issues, but woefully incomplete. It had been so easy to see the woman hadn't belonged with the two males.

Now he knew why.

But…it changed _everything_. He had always dreamed of a family. But he had had that with Tomoko Kimura and her mother. He had a perfectly good life, if one ignored the Talent issue. Sure, he didn't go to school like other kids his age, but he danced to his heart's content, wandered around the country, taking in new sights wherever he went, learning and fostering more appreciation. In his spare time he tried learning how to play an instrument; he decided he could spend his entire life travelling and making music, singing and dancing and getting to know the world. The peaceful world, without people who only complicated it. Where they would only be fans critiquing or enjoying. Where they would only be spectators watching.

'No.' He said suddenly, and rather vehemently. 'It's not true.'

'Kou-'

'I told you not to call me that!' His eyes stabilised at their carmine hue, and almost without warning red energy surged from his body.

Kouji reacted instinctively, shoving his father out of the way and sending a blue wolf into the heart of the power.

It was easily snuffed out.

'I'm stronger than you,' Kouichi, or whatever he wished himself to be called, uttered with an almost eerily calm. For a moment, the other could see the outline of wings on his back before they faded. Or dissolved. He couldn't tell.

Inside the energy, he clutched his head again, but it was easier. Far easier. He had to wonder why. With an almost sense of irony, he wondered if it was because he had found his heart.

It had to be the truth. He could feel it. But no-one could know. Because the second they did, he'd be dead. There were people, both Talent and human, who wanted the world destroyed for their own purposes. So they could control the rest of space and time, or build a utopia. Or so they wouldn't have to suffer, and could drag the whole world down with them.

It didn't matter, he decided to himself, tears starting to form and trickle down his cheeks. It was just Lady Luck cursing him again. He'd had enough of alternating between loathing and screaming for his parents. He knew where they were now, and why. And if he didn't want to do the inevitable, he realised he really couldn't hate the other for getting the chance at life he had been denied.

Maybe if he hadn't had that spell, almost two years, of peace, it might have been different. But after years of darkness, that, he felt, was enough to hold him to his new resolve.

Even though a part of him wished he could just go and hug his father, and a brother he hadn't even imagined, and take his place in their hearts. Even though a part of him complained bitterly it wasn't fair.

_I have to be strong_, he told himself. No-one could ever know. It had to be lie. It had to be.

But what was going to happen once he died?

Suddenly terror seized him, and he lost control of his energy orb. Power literally _spat_ everywhere, hitting the bus-shelter, the streets, the lamp-post…

By some miracle, it didn't hit any people, but his body was shaking. He could feel his wings flapping…

Flapping?

He tried to retract the power inward, even though he knew it was a pretty stupid thing to do. More likely it would enrage the instinct rather than suppress it, but if he could cut off the ties of his consciousness, then maybe he could stop his body changing…

He did scream when he felt flesh break. Red clouded his vision a moment, and it took him a while to realise it was blood running down his face and not the colour of his irises…not that it would have changed anything. They were already red. .

A small part of him felt oddly disconnected though, even as he felt the rest of his body changing too, alternating, moulting, twisting, churning…

He saw two pairs of eyes floating in the sea, one which looked remarkably like his own but simply reflecting different things. If he had the time to look at them, he could build up quite a story. That was always fun, except when he bumped into little loads that caused them pain or sadness. If he was feeling empathic enough, they caused him pain as well.

And now he was the one causing the pain. Twice over only he had been _born_ correctly.

He was suddenly crying. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. Then the sensation vanished, leaving him utterly drained.

The rain pattered gently at his face, reminding him he had to get out of there. Had to get somewhere where they'd all be safe. Hopefully no-one would ever hear, and that would be the end of the little burst that had brought his family back.

And now that he knew, he would never come back. Never so close.

It just wasn't worth it, for his own selfish reasons.

The darkness answered his call easily, understanding his desire, his need…

But he could make out a blurry figure reaching for him, stretching out.

'No,' he murmured weakly. 'Stay away…'

They both vanished at the instant the two twins, one of light and the other of darkness, physically connected.

* * *

><p>…<p>

_**End of Chapter 7**_

**A/N: **Daemeolisuli is Korean (courtesy of google translate) for vulture. Likewise, cheosbeonjjae is Korean for number one, or first. Kouji and his father don't understand Korean, so they have absolutely no idea what Kouichi said. And he doesn't know enough Japanese to be able to translate it.

Now we get to explain the twins' connection. Only Kouji's little madness spell didn't come out quite how I had imagined it.

It's so useful to have the ellipses. Don't have to bother looking for where to put the me time.

Funny, it's my anniversary on fanfiction and my birthday today. Of all the days to start up an account...hehe. Not important though.


	8. Empty Grave

…

_**THE LION IN THE SKY**_

…

_**Chapter 8**_

_**Empty Grave**_

…

He wasn't quite sure why he ran for the other. He could feel up a few books with the things he did purely on instinct, especially since a score of the time it contradicted the personality he commonly portrayed. Everything in his head was still trying to shuffle and rearrange itself to make perfect sense of the bizarre roller coaster everything he had known about his family and his Talent had taken in the past…ten or fifteen minutes max, he figured.

Why the hell was he thinking about the length of time anyway? He had far more important things to do!

Answers for one thing. So now he knew a little more about the mutation, which might or might not help in finding a cure for it. But there were so many other things he didn't know. Didn't understand. Some things hadn't even clicked yet.

Heck, if he had been in the other guys, Kouichi's, his _brother_'s, shoes, he would have attempted to blast him into oblivion by now. All he had done was create some sort of energy orb which hit everything and yet no _one_. Even after he had attacked him.

And why was he suddenly, and rather vehemently, denying the truth he had accepted? It was so obvious by his eyes…and why were they changing so? That was no ordinary mutation. No physical deformity could make eye colours change so quickly.

And why had he showed up after fourteen years? Just…what was going on?

He could understand why his father had never said anything, carrying the weight of the second (supposed) death inside. But that was the only thing really that made sense…unless one counted the truth he could feel blaring in his heart.

His fingertip touched the other's cold skin…and suddenly, he was spiralling into darkness…

And then he was choking. His chest fell constricted. His body felt like it had been stuffed in a body bag…or something similar. It was certainly cramped.

His eyes flew open as the scent of wet soil wafted through his nose…and something else which for some reason revolted him. Even though he couldn't place the smell he felt like throwing up because of it.

His eyes glowed, and a little light entered the…box? It had four walls, he was cramped under his…well, brother who appeared to be out cold, and..?

Then he screamed at a rather nasty shock. It was no box.

It was a grave.

Below them both where white pristine bones arranged to give the size of an average adult, cleaned entirely of flesh.

…

Junpei sighed and tried his communicator again.

'All I'm getting is static,' he complained finally, giving up. 'Where the heck is he?'

Takuya groaned, before sneezing. 'Oh Jesus,' he cursed. 'Don't tell me I'm getting a-' He sneezed again. 'Darn!'

'Since when did you become a Christian?' Izumi asked, picking her soaking face off the asphalt. 'Ooh, I could just lie here forever.'

'Forever sounds good,' Tomoki mumbled to the ground. 'I'm freezing.'

'That's cause you make ice,' Junpei pointed out. 'Um…Takuya? Can you do anything?'

'I'm Shinto,' he said to the only female, a tad late. 'Huh? Do what?'

'Warm Tomoki up?'

'S'kay.' But they barely heard him.

'Umm…' Takuya thought for a minute. 'I think so…provided you don't mind carrying us all home.'

'Takuya, I don't think you could even carry yourself further than maybe the next street before falling again.'

'…point taken.' He sighed, closed his eyes, and reached out for his elemental sympathy.

Junpei went back to his communicator, this time trying their boss.

'Tsubokura-san? We can't reach Kouji.'

'I was hoping I wouldn't hear that,' was the reply, actually sounding rathe worried. 'I got cut off while talking to him. Apparently he had found another Renegade, and I'll hazard a guess from the background noise it was a male.'

'Geez, how many Renegades are running around tonight? Is there a convention or something?'

'What do you mean? And why aren't Orimoto-chan or Kanbara-kun contacting me?'

'Oh…' Junpei paused for a moment. 'Well, you see, the four of us bumped into a couple of Renegades, and then two more joined in. I don't think one of them was a part of the other three though. Turned into a three-on-one-on-four fight, and…well…'

'All four of them got away?'

'Yes sir.' If he had animal ears, they would be drooping.

'Hmm…' He paused. 'I wonder if it was one of those four Renegades.' They had been right (although all of them had been undeniably concerned. He was pretty fierce when he wanted to be). 'Hold on a moment…huh?'

That was a rather unorthodox reaction.

'Did any of you see one of them teleport?'

Junpei repeated the question out loud, and got two illegible groans from Tomoki and Takuya, the latter now cooling the elder's feverish forehead as he had sucked out a little too much heat to warm him up and melt the ice around them all before they got frost-bite. All with good intention, but it had been a little too taxing on his powers.

'Might have,' Izumi said, a little more legibly as she tried to spit limp hair out of her face. She failed epically though. 'That black haired kid…hold on a sec. Takuya?'

'Whazzit?' he mumbled blearily, not even bothering trying to sit up. 'Oh, tell the buildings to stop moving around.'

'They're not moving,' the blonde retorted back, resisting the urge to slump and instead crawling over to Junpei. 'Anyway, didn't that black kid look like that dancer…from the back I mean?'

It took Takuya a while to think about that. 'So that's why I…recognised that voice,' he mumbled to himself. 'I thought he was after a hostage for a second, but he just pushed me away to avoid that water, and then he just vanished…'

'I think that's a yes,' Junpei supplied. 'That kid Takuya mentioned before.'

'Okay then.' There was the sound of tapping keys before Tsubokura spoke again. 'The computers picked up the teleporter's signal. It was easy enough to separate from the others.' There was some more tapping. 'That's interesting. He doesn't appear on the database.'

'What does that mean?' the thunder-user asked curiously.

'I have no idea.' There was more tapping. 'Let's see if I can't find them. Hmm…those other three are gone again. They must be out of range.'

'Shoot.'

'I'm sure you all did your best,' the old man said, almost kindly. 'I've tracked down the other's signal along with Minamoto-kun's…that's odd.'

'What?'

'They're at Jufuku-ji temple.'

'The _graveyard?_'

That was fairly near to where Izumi _should_ have been on outpost.

Four groans greeted that outburst.

'I'm not budging,' they all said at once as Takuya's head dropped face-down again.

'Well…' Junpei began, but Tsubokura interrupted him.

'Stay where you are Shibayama-kun. What's wrong with the others?'

'Over-tax,' he explained. 'Even with four of us, our elements were all disadvantaged…except perhaps Izumi and she was saving us from acid burns.'

There was another pause.

'Explain once you get back to base,' he said finally. 'I'll send Shiohi to pick you all up. I guess I had better check on Minamoto-kun myself.'

There was a small beep to signal the end of transmission.

'I guess we're getting a ride.'

'Oh, thank goodness.' Izumi still hadn't succeeded getting to her feet yet.

…

Tsubokura was expecting a warzone when he stepped into Jutuku-ji temple Graveyard, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary at all. He even shone his torch around to make sure.

At times like this he wished there was a third person, because now there was no-one at base who could check the computer and track the signals again.

The yellow beam from the flashlight swept over the graves to make sure. All of them were perfectly intact…except one.

He stopped in front of one somewhere in the middle. It was just over fourteen years old from the date.

'Minamoto Kaori,' he read. _Minamoto-kun's mother_.

The earth under it had cracked, and it was slightly heaped. As if someone…or something, had pushed against it.

Grave-robbers? Or had the teleporter somehow teleported the pair into a grave?

Even for an adult, the thought was frightening, to be stuck in such a claustrophobic space with only white bones for comfort.

That Renegade really had to be insane to do something like that.

…

Kouji had tried thumping on the roof, but the angle was all wrong, and as a consequence, he couldn't attain the correct leverage. He couldn't tell how long it had been, but he hadn't thumped more than a few times before a sudden dizzy spell overcame him, along with hysteria.

By the time it had passed, he realised something else. The tomb was sealed shut. Sooner or later, they were both going to run out of air.

Oh, the irony of dying in a grave.

He closed his eyes, trying to summon enough light to blast through the top. But try as he might, he couldn't get any more than the brief prick he already had. There simply was no source to call upon.

He did the only other option, though he was seriously starting to panic. Of all the ways to die, he hadn't imagined it like this. And there was no way anyone was going to find them anytime soon.

'Kouichi. Hey, Kouichi. Wake up. You've got to do something. Blast the top open. We're both going to die in here if you don't.'

The other stirred slightly. He had heard.

…

Tsubokura was wondering whether he should go and retrieve a spade so he could unearth the ground and check, then the earth suddenly flew away, years of sedimentation becoming nothing as the particles of dirt scattered as if someone had blasted a hole upon it.

Or under it. Because the casket was wide open, top cracked, and two nearly identical boys were inside.

One was Minamoto-kun, gasping desperately for air and shaking, not even caring for once about how anybody else would perceive him.

He caught sight of a nearly identical shade of blue before the other slipped into unconsciousness again.

…

'Are you serious?' Takuya exclaimed, before sneezing again. ''xcuse me.' He grabbed another tissue that the Doctor had left and blew his nose, before huddling back into the blanket.

Kouji glared sourly from his own huddle, trying to ignore his own shaking. Somehow, talking had seemed to be the best option after seeing the grave of his own mother like that. It was something he never wanted to remember again, so he focused on the one thing that could distract the point.

'Sorry, I was just making-achoo-sure.' He wrinkled his nose. 'Damn, hate the sniffles.'

'Hey,' Izumi hissed, putting a finger to her lips. 'You'll wake Tomoki.'

The younger boy was fast asleep on her lap.

'I really hope nothing happens tonight.' Junpei said quietly, after they'd all dropped the conversation, looking at their youngest member.

'I doubt it,' Tsubokura said, suddenly popping up. 'All existing Renegades were in action today. They're probably in the same condition as you, or worse.'

'How's-' Kouji actually cast aside the blanket and made to get up, but the older man gave him a reprimanding glare.

'You will sit back down and wrap yourself in that blanket Minamoto-kun. Am I understood?' Without waiting for an answer, he continued. 'As for your…brother.' Like everyone else, he was stumbling on the world. 'Shiohi is still looking into him, but he doesn't seem to have any permanent injuries. However there are things that need explaining, but for that we'll have to wait until he wakes up…and hope he doesn't teleport again.'

'And my father?'

Tsubokura blinked. 'I haven't seen him.'

'He was the one who said it. He saw us…well, I suppose we were fighting.'

There was a silence. No-one quite knew what to say. Kouji just drew the blanket tighter around his body.

'I need to call him.'

'All right.'

…

_**End of Chapter 8**_

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Now this chapter is a tad short. Again, it's the whole timing issue. I didn't want to get into the talk between Kousei and Kouji. Kouichi's really the main character here, and that doesn't particularly relate to the story. Not any longer anyway. The rest of the explanation is in the next chapter. Was quite a while coming wasn't it?


	9. Without a Heart

…

_**THE LION IN THE SKY**_

…

_**Chapter 9**_

_**Without a Heart**_

…

'Oh good, you're waking up.'

He didn't recognise the voice, but it sounded warm. Much like those kind women: "Mother" and "Grandmother". They are who this nice woman reminded him of.

'Here. You must be thirsty, not to mention exhausted after all that.'

Something warm, a rather viscous liquid, slid down his throat. It wasn't hot enough the scald the lining of his oesophagus or the receptors on his tongue, but it wasn't cold enough to expel on reflux either. After all, soup was hardly classified as edible when stone cold.

He eagerly lapped up the sustenance before managing to work his eyes open, whereby he flushed rather darkly.

The woman just smiled kindly at him and offered the bowl.

'Have as much as you like,' she said. 'I've made plenty.'

He half-sat, and the woman smiled at him again, holding out the bowl as if coaxing a young frightened child to take it. He sat up all the way and the coverlets fell to his stomach level, still comfortably covering his legs but dropping from his arms and chest.

She sat the bowl and its accompanying spoon on his lap, watching carefully as he spooned a scoop of broth into his mouth, followed by another.

It was only after he finished half the broth did the events of the following night catch up to him and he almost dropped the bowl, eyes darting around frantically.

'Where-?'

'You're in the infirmary,' the blonde woman said kindly, taking the bowl before it spilt. 'I'm Doctor Ryuusui Shiohi.' She looked at the bowl. 'You're finished.'

'I've got to-' The boy completely ignored her final statement, standing unsteadily…before catching sight of the white lab coat hanging by the door, and the equipment beside it. Needles, an IV stand, a few bags of vitamins and fluids and some incision and incubation materials.

Shiohi almost jumped out of her skin when he unexpectedly screamed.

'_Ani!_' he shrieked, tone piercing. '_Ani! Anyo jeon an! Nan moshe!'_

Shiohi blinked, having not understood a word the other had said.

'Calm down,' she said gently, reaching for him. He jerked back like a frightened animal, almost falling over the bed and suddenly panting hard, eyes flicking between blue and brown and an almost crimson red.

And she could see only one thing constant in them. Fear.

'Calm down,' she repeated, this time not reaching out but instead holding her arms in front of her, like a peace signal. 'I won't hurt you. I promise.'

'No,' he shrieked, this time in Japanese, glaring at the corner. '_Nappeun ildeul-i_! Bad things! Won't-'

He suddenly clutched his head, and his hair, tight.

'_Ani!'_ He repeated, squeezing his eyes shut. _'Ani!'_

She looked to where he had been glaring, wondering what had distressed the teen so.

'They're not for you,' she said, looking at the assortment of needles and other things spread out. 'You don't need them, do you?'

She kept her tone light and amused.

_'You're a good boy. You don't need those things, do you? Don't worry, Tomoko will take them away now.'_

'Shiohi will take them away now,' she continued, covering them.

He peeked at her from behind the bangs falling over his eyes. 'T-to-mo-ko?'

'Shi-o-hi,' the Doctor said slowly. 'My name is Shiohi, and I just want to help you.'

…

The moment he saw the needles and surgical instruments, he panicked. He well remembered the earlier years of his life, the endless repetition, the cycles of pain, hunger and nothingness, all brought on by pokes and prods. The white room. The masked faces clothed entirely in white. The black hole, the consuming hunger…

And terror of understanding absolutely nothing at all. A lab rat, trapped constantly in its cage, twisted and used and manipulated until the scientists got the results they wanted.

And then nothing.

It had been that terror that had drove him almost mad. That had caused him to literally explode with power. He wasn't quite sure what it had been that set him off in the end, removed the final lever, but he had destroyed the entire facility and fallen into the water.

That had been even more terrifying, somehow floating but seeing nothing at all.

He had lost consciousness soon after, and it was a good thing too, otherwise who knew how fate's hand would have turned. As it was, he eventually washed up on a shore, and awoke to a warm smell and a kind face.

They had showed him how beautiful the world could be. And it was worth trying to protect. Even if all he was doing to protect it was running. It was still worth it, in the end.

But those devices brought it all back. Those endless years.

And he couldn't go back to that again.

…

'I just want to help you,' she repeated gently, stretching out again. 'Trust me.'

'_It doesn't matter if you don't remember. Just trust me. I'll help you.'_

Blood was pounding in his ears, but the fear in his heart was starting to die. Maybe she really did want to help.

But he couldn't calm back down. He could feel his wings trying to burst out again. Could feel the uncontrollable urge, that which would send him on a rampage far worse than the one that had set him free. A rampage that would not only kill them, but the earth itself, leaving it the way it was when only the sun had existed in the galaxy, a burning mass of hydrogen and helium and nothing else.

'Breath,' she instructed, deciding to take the risk and come clothes. 'Come on, slow and deep breaths. Imagine a field of poppies in your head? Have you seen poppies? You haven't? How about any sort of flower then. Sakura blossoms? They're very beautiful in the autumn, with their white and pink petals

'Breath,' she instructed, deciding to take the risk and come clothes. 'Come on, slow and deep breaths. Imagine a field of poppies in your head? Have you seen poppies? You haven't? How about any sort of flower then. Sakura blossoms? They're very beautiful in the autumn, with their white and pink petals and little red cores…'

She continued speaking in that same gentle tone, the tone she used whenever her patients got frightened or lost control of their emotions…and she knew it was harder on Talents than regular children. Their innocent and carefree childhoods were cut short all too soon…and this poor boy hadn't gotten his at all.

Eventually, the panting ceased and his eyes turned back to an ocean blue hue. He trembled still, but the blonde smiled and rearranged the blanket so it wrapped him snugly.

'Everything's going to be just fine,' she said kindly. 'My job here is to find a cure, so that people like you can be free forever. No more uncontrollable power. No more being afraid and being hunted when all you want to do is live a normal life like you deserve. Wouldn't you like that?'

He peeked up at her, looking simply like a lost little child. That's what they all were in the end. Those who could be saved anyway.

Those they knew they could save rather. As for the others, all they could do was keep working, pray…and hope.

'In fact,' Shiohi continued brightly, offering the soup bowl again. The other took it hesitantly, but made no move to continue eating. 'I think you might be able to help with that. You already have in fact.'

He lifted his head slightly, front teeth skimming the edge of his lower lip.

'How about you tell us everything you know. Hopefully that'll fill in all the gaps.'

She closed her eyes and tilted her head slightly, beaming at him.

He clutched himself tighter. 'Us?'

She resisted the urge to snap her fingers, rightly thinking that might accidentally startle the other in his current state.

'I knew I forgot something,' she declared to herself. 'There are more children like you. I think you've…err, met them.' That was a rather rudiment way of putting it. 'Fire, wind, thunder, ice and light.' She looked closely for a reaction, but all she got was a bit of a turn of the head with the last one. 'And the man who's in charge of this place. I suppose we can call him a father. He certainly acts that way, alternating between seriously strict and seriously worried.'

'You're like a mother,' Kouichi said quietly.

She blinked. 'Actually, I've always thought of myself as more of an aunt.' Then she smiled again, eyes shining. 'But that was really sweet to say that.'

There was a rather comfortable pause.

'Eat up,' she prompted, pointing at the bowl. 'Then get some rest. You look like you could use it.'

…

'I told you he was an interesting guy,' Takuya gloated, lounging on the couch and savouring the comfort.

'Somehow I don't think this is what you meant,' Izumi retorted back.

Surprisingly, Kouji said nothing at all.

'Is something wrong Kouji?' Tomoki asked him. 'You look kind of down.'

'I guess…' He sighed. 'I'm having a time wrapping my head around all this, that's for sure. But what gets me is the way he said it wasn't true in the end. I thought for a moment he believed it more easily than I did. But to just turn around like that…and nothing hit to. If it were me, I'd be mad as all hell. But him, it was almost like he was scared, like he was trying to make a show so that no-one else would know the truth…'

'It sounds to me like he was trying to protect you.'

They all looked up at Doctor Ryuusui who had just walked in.

'Protect…me?'

'Look it at it from his perspective,' she explained kindly. 'From what we know of it anyway. He hasn't growing up with a kind and loving family. He hasn't grown up with a family at all. We know he looks after himself by dancing in festivals and on the streets for others' entertainment, knowing how close it brings him to things any child should stay away from. He's got a lot of power, and he's terrified of it. And he's scared someone's going to make him do something he really doesn't want to do.'

'He said he couldn't kill me,' Kouji said slowly. 'He said he was a bomb that could self-destruct and destroy everything I hold dear. But it didn't sound like a threat. I didn't understand.'

'Let's ask him to explain then,' Takuya groaned. 'I don't want to play twenty questions.'

'Let him rest first. When he's ready, he'll tell us.'

…

He was feeling far better now. He would have been just fine though, if a certain thought hadn't been nagging his brain.

The bowl was empty now, but he held it still. Mostly so he had something to hold. Doctor Ryuusui had brought him into the "sitting room", and now everyone had gathered. Five Talents and three adults, because Tsubokura had decided that Minamoto Kousei had a right to hear the story too.

'I guess it doesn't matter,' he muttered to himself. 'It's been said once already.'

'Come again?' Takuya blinked.

He just shook his head silently. 'I suppose I should start from the start.' He closed his eyes. 'That man… I think he was the one who engineered the virus, or in any case funded the project. He wanted the world destroyed. He called it a cruel and dark place, full of wild animals defiling it. He wanted it gone so a new world can grow. One that would be beautiful, and full of life and happiness.'

'What the heck's wrong with this one?' Takuya exclaimed, cutting the other off. 'This guy's got some serious issues.'

He got five glares in return, and he shrank. 'Sorry.'

Tsubokura gave him another glare, before turning back to Kouichi. 'Please continue. Tell us more about this man.'

'I don't know much,' he admitted. 'I know he created a virus of some sort and released it somewhere, but he'd done something wrong. It hadn't worked. He'd intended create a human weapon that would destroy the world, but a few years later, people with unusual Talents started being born. He was angry because these Talents could only destroy bits and pieces. They were making matters worse. He always cursed about that…'

He trailed off, before sighing. 'That's all I know about him.'

'Well, go on then,' Tsubokura said, not unkindly. 'That was more than we originally knew.'

The boy looked up at the older man who nodded in encouragement.

'I don't know how they found me,' he continued slowly. 'Then, I didn't even know what had happened to my heart. But they had implanted a bird's heart into me. Because I was Talent, it accepted me. It had something to do with animals they had used for the virus.'

'They had synthesised animal DNA to create that mutative strand?' Shiohi frowned. 'It's a little like the flu strands. The wrong types of animals cross, and the result…' She took out her pad and scribbled it down. 'That's going to take some working out, but I think amongst all the Talents, the right animals are somewhere, and if we can map-'

'Shiohi,' Tsubokura interrupted. 'None of us understand what the hell you're talking about.'

'Err…right.' She blushed a little and fell silent. 'I'm sorry for the interruption. Please continue.'

'There isn't much more,' Kouichi said quietly. 'They said something about a _daemeoli suli_, the animal where the heart was from. They somehow corrected the virus. They tested it somehow. Wiped an island off the map. They said that once the power reached its full potential, I'd destroy everything. The entire world. But first, my heart needed to be destroyed. My real one.

'They prodded me with needles and other things. Life alternated between pain, hunger and drug induced hazes. I don't know what happened, but then suddenly everything was blowing up, and I was in the sea, floating to nowhere. I'd wanted it to end so badly, that I'd destroyed them all. The ones in the white coats. That white place. Everything.'

'The Kamakura oil plant.' Tsubokura nodded. 'But what's a _daemeoli suli_?' His tongue rolled over the word. 'That's not Japanese, is it?'

Kouichi shook his head. 'I don't know how it translates.'

'No problem,' Junpei said easily. 'Write it down when you're done and I'll look it up. But how'd you get out of the sea?'

Izumi elbowed him.

'Oww. What? You were thinking it too.'

Kouichi couldn't help it. He laughed.

Seven pairs of eyes blinked at him. Tomoki just grinned. 'It did make a cute image,' he admitted, causing Junpei to blush hotly. Izumi on the other hand did not, but she did look awkward, before shaking it off easily with a grin.

'Oh, what the heck,' she decided. 'You definitely don't agree with that crazy thingymobob. But…how did you get out of the sea?'

Junpei resisted the urge to elbow her, though Takuya cracked up.

'I don't know,' Kouichi answered finally. 'A lady named Tomoko found me. Somehow I'd lost my memories too. I didn't know anything, but they didn't care. She and her mother looked after me after that. They taught me things. They showed me this world really was beautiful, so by the time I remembered everything, I didn't want it to be destroyed. Even if there were ugly things in it.'

They were all silent for a moment, reflecting on what he had said, but then he started talking again.

'I kept on winding up back here though. I didn't understand how. I'd see a boy and a man and a woman and a dog, every time. And then I'd want to go home, and I'd be back in Korea with them. It took a while to realise I could teleport from one place to another, but it always left me exhausted afterwards. And I couldn't really control where I wound up. It was mostly something I couldn't touch driving me. I couldn't help it though. It was almost like my heart was calling me, and it was. So when they died about a year ago, I came here permanently. But somehow the word had spread, and other Talents were looking for me. Those who agreed with the ideals. Who wanted a world ugly in their eyes gone, and a new one made. One where everyone would be happy.'

'The only place like that is paradise,' Kousei said slowly, speaking for the first time. 'In a roundabout way, all they want is to die. But they cannot bear to be alone, so they'll take everything and everyone with them.'

That summed it up perfectly.

'One thing I don't understand,' Takuya said finally. 'It's so totally obvious Kouji's your brother. I mean, look at the looks if nothing else. And you just said you felt something. You should! You're twins. So why-?'

'Don't you get it?' The other exclaimed. 'Once my heart is gone, it's over. He was safe so long as no-one knew. But if someone hears about, they'll kill him. And when he's dead they'll get exactly what they want.'

'Doesn't matter,' Kouji said immediately. 'I'm not some helpless kid you know. I'll give them a fight to remember.'

Izumi whacked him upside the head. 'You make it sound like you're alone,' she scolded. 'We're all here too. Besides…' She smirked suddenly. 'Why are we talking about dying anyway? We're all going to live till we're ripe old women because Ryuusui-sensei is going to brew up her magical cure, right?'

She smiled brightly at the older woman, who smiled back, flexing her fingers. They were cramped from writing so fast, but there was some useful information in there. She might make another leap in progress, and if she did that, then the cure wasn't far away at all.

'Let's hope so Orimoto-chan.'

…

Kouji stopped just by the door. After his explanation, his brother had been surprisingly silent, opting to go back to the infirmary where he had simply sat in the blanket upon the bed, knees drawn up to his chest.

_Just get in there_, he told himself firmly, and before he could convince himself otherwise, he marched in.

Once he was inside though, he stopped awkwardly.

'Err…hey.'

The other looked up. 'Hi,' he said quietly, before averting his eyes again.

A rather awkward silence followed.

'Aren't you mad?' Kouji asked finally.

'Why would I be?'

'Well…it was my fault all of this happened. I was the one who got the heart in the operation, and that left you to die. Worse, you became a science experiment while I grew up with my father. And I had resented people when I was younger because they had their mothers as well. I had resented Satomi because she was stealing the spot that belonged to my real mother, even if that had never been her intention. So why don't you hate me for being the one who got to grow up with his family and live a rather normal life while you couldn't?'

The other's face fell slowly. 'I did for a small moment,' he admitted. 'It didn't seem fair you got a heart and I didn't, especially when I remembered how it felt before, almost as if that organ in my chest was not a part of my body but something foreign. And I remembered how it was back then, but it wouldn't have mattered if I did hate you, because I could have done nothing. I had sworn to myself I wouldn't destroy this world, and to do that I had to protect my heart. I couldn't well hate it.'

'You could hate me now,' the younger twin said quietly. 'For a moment, and that wouldn't change anything.'

'I could,' Kouichi agreed. 'But then I think how lucky I was after all, even after all the bad luck I seem to run into. A lot of the times I saw you, you didn't look happy at all. The world mustn't have looked very beautiful during those times.'

He didn't know what to say to that. Except…

'Only a really amazing human could say that you know. Someone with a strong heart, and that's not just the organ, but the soul and willpower as well. Don't say you don't have your heart again because you do. It may not have been the one you were born with, but you've taught it love so that makes it yours.'

It took awhile after, but slowly a smile formed on his face.

…

_**End of Chapter 9**_

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

Translations:

Ani – no

Anyo jean an – no, I won't

Nan moshe – I won't.

Nappeun ildeul-I – bad things

daemeoli suli - vulture

Don't ask why it's like that. That's just was google translator gave me. And I couldn't exactly write it in English. It would be too confusing telling the difference between that and what's said in Japanese. Kouichi doesn't do it a lot though. After all, he is in Japan.

Shiohi makes her first real-live appearance in this chapter.

Anyone noticed Izumi said "ripe old women" and no-one corrected her? That was on purpose mind you.

This is also the end of the explanations. From the next chapter is the final battle.

On a completely unrelated note, I'll finally be finishing Slaves to the Trade on Sunday. Yay.


	10. The Vulture of Death

…

_**THE LION IN THE SKY**_

…

_**Chapter 10**_

_**The Vulture of Death**_

…

'It's raining acid again,' Tsubokura muttered, shaking off his umbrella before looking almost woefully at the holes.

'Acid?'

He blinked at the reaction he got. Kouichi had been curled up on the couch and reading one of Tomoki's old Japanese textbooks. Both Shiohi and Kousei had decided it would be a good idea he learnt to write Japanese…and brush up on his reading at the same time.

'Yes, acid.' He blinked as the other leapt up. 'Is there a problem?'

'It's Chiaki,' the other replied, scowling slightly. 'She makes acid rain.'

'Perhaps she manipulates the acidity of water by splitting more water particles into their soluble ions and somehow stemming off the base, perhaps with reacting it with something else in the air,' Shiohi suggested in a single breath. She had been taking a break from her research to fetch a cup of coffee for herself, as well as to check on the Talent who was currently stuck…now that had two Talents after him that knew exactly what he looked like. So he'd been stuck inside for about two days, recovering. It was something he was unused to, but he found it not totally undesirable.

He had argued against that, pointing out that the others had been seen too, but Tsubokura rebuked that by flatly stating they weren't the main target.

'They've got school to go to,' he had said flatly. 'And no-one will be using this as an excuse to skip.'

He had looked rather firmly at Takuya when he was saying that, knowing the other would be thrilled for the idea. But they had all taken off to endure the day, wishing longingly it was Saturday so the day was halved…or better yet, Sunday. When there was no school at all.

Tsubokura folded the umbrella in present time and put it in the stand, staring curiously at the boy who looked rather…strained.

'Is there a problem?' he asked. 'No doubt the acid collected in the clouds and came down with the next burst of rain.'

Kouichi shook his head, shaggy black locks flying to and fro with each shake.

'It's not natural rain,' he said quietly, making as if to leave.

'Hold on a moment.' Tsubokura held out a hand to stop the other. 'I'd like to know a few things first. Once you answer my questions, you can go. Acid rain isn't particular dangerous in short-term.'

'Provided people remember their umbrellas,' Shiohi amended. 'But should any animal attempt to drink that water, it's a strong possibility they will be somehow adversely affected by it.'

'She did the same thing in Korea,' Kouichi added. 'She's daring someone to stop her. And someone has to.'

'Next question,' Tsubokura pressed on before the topic got off hand. 'Your stamina.'

Evidently, that hadn't been what the Talent was expecting.

'_Mueos_?' Then noting the confused looks he received and realised he had slipped up and used Korean again, he quickly amended: 'Nani?'

'Your stamina,' the other repeated. 'If your dominant animal mutation is an eagle, a bird, why is your stamina so low? Kanbara-kun tells me you were breathing quite hard when you ran into him the first time. And you were in essentially the same state when you teleported away from the others quite early during the…scrimmage.'

Kouichi blinked at that, then shook his head. 'I'm sorry,' he replied. 'But I have no idea. I can run quite fast too, in short bursts, and jump fairly high, but I can't fly. I don't have wings.'

'I think you can,' the Doctor mused thoughtfully. 'But I wonder if the bird mutant strand is tied to what the virus was originally intended to do and your talent comes from another animal or element altogether. I noticed it when I was examining you, but…' She grinned slightly. 'Did you know you have the most adorable ears?'

His hands automatically went to touch them.

Tsubokura abruptly removed the hands, fingering the ear, larger and more rounded than a human's. 'What animal is this from?' he asked, frowning. 'It looks like a cat.'

'It's a lion,' Shiohi replied. 'More specifically, a female , swift and agile, but like all lions, low on stamina. And if you push the wrong buttons, rather aggressive.' Plainly, she found it rather amusing. 'It does explain your natural small stature and grace.'

Both males gave her odd looks.

She just shrugged. 'Lions are one of those families where the male and female roles are quite unorthodox. It is the female lion after all who looks after their family.'

'A lion…' he mused. 'What does a lion look like?'

'I think there's a picture in that book.'

And the blonde helped him spot it. While he gazed at the beautiful large cat, Tsubokura cleared his throat.

'The third point,' he pressed on. After all, they did want to stop the water-sprite, but they had to wait for the computer to locate her. 'That bird you were telling us. It's called an eagle.'

He nodded at Shiohi, who took the book from the other boy and showed him an image.

He had great difficulty suppressing the gasp as he saw the large beak, the goading eyes and the large steely, darker than even the night sky or the yukata he danced in, whirling around like feathers-

'They're scavenging birds,' the old man explained. 'They eat off dead flesh, but sometimes kill the wounded and sick as well.'

'It-It's-' He stopped once he realised his voice was shaking. The image was frightening. He'd never seen anything like it.

'It's frightening,' Shiohi agreed. 'There's a lot of hidden symbolism here. On the other hand, I might have figured out why the different expressions, and why not all are animalistic but some represent natural forms.'

'Oh?' This was news to Tsubokura, before turning to Kouichi. 'One more question. How can you be sure this isn't natural rain? It was on the forecast after all.'

'The darkness is unnatural,' the other said, looking skyward. It was almost as if he could see through the ceiling. 'It's a full moon tonight.'

He wasn't quite sure what that meant, but he knew it meant something. Something important.

'I have to go,' he said, after the silence settled a little.

'The others will take care of it,' Tsubokura cut in. 'You-'

'I feel like I need to be there,' Kouichi interrupted. 'I don't know why, but something's calling.'

The two adults exchanged glances, before they let him go. Of course, both were well aware he didn't need their express permission, seeing as he had disappeared on the spot.

Somehow though, the simple fact that he had waited spoke volumes.

'I'm getting back to work,' Shiohi said finally. 'This breakthrough might not be enough, and we're running out of time.'

He just nodded, before picking up the communicator to contact the others.

Outside, the clouds were darkening, but the rain did not change its intensity. It seemed Kouichi was right; it was unnatural.

Was it going to rain for 40 days and 40 nights? Were they going to need to build an ark like Noah?

He drifted off to make himself a cup of coffee. It bugged him that that was the only thing he could do.

…

'I had a feeling you'd come.' Chiaki smiled, but the smile could be described as nothing less than feline. The rain gently sprinkled on her chestnut hair and aqua-pallid skin, leaving little trail marks as it dribbled down her grubby clothes.

Anyone else who saw her would be reminded of Mystique when she had stood in the house of Charles Xavier, stealing to survive. Except Mystique hadn't been smiling as eerily as this young woman was. The only similarity between the two smiles was that the other had at least attempted to be convincing. Chiaki had no such care.

On that note, anyone else who saw her would, if it wasn't for the fish-belly skin the fins that occasionally rippled from her body and the gills that lined her neck like three clawed scars, opening to gulp out water when she could not survive from oxygen in the air, would pity her wild appearance. He, he only found it…well, frightening, because despite her circumstances, she'd always taken a care to her looks. The water had cared for her. Kept her hair clean, her clothes fresh…even when it changed her appearance in return. But she spent enough time in the sea as her home to largely blend in when wondering the normal streets.

Perhaps because she was standing on the beach, bare feet sinking into the wet sand, transitioning between land and water every time a wave washed over her feet.

If she had been so close to the water, why hadn't she gone in?

The question was answered when something suddenly hit him in the back, knocking him under the next wave. He'd been so preoccupied with the rain and the cause that he had forgotten about the other two. And he of all people should have known about that little family.

'Hey, three on one's not fair!' someone shouted as he came up, spluttering and coughing for air. The next moment, the ground was shaking before disappearing entirely.

Once he got his eyes open, he found himself getting carried into the air by Takuya.

'Wha-?' He gasped, before coughing again as the other set him down.

'We thought you could use the help,' he grinned, before cursing as the ground began to shake again.

Kouichi aimed a laser beam, but Chiaki got in the way with a blast of dark vapour, Izumi dispelling it. Meanwhile, Junpei and Tomoki tackled Katsuharu and his annoying fists while Kouji jumped out of the way of a sandstorm.

Apparently, the pairs had already been sorted out.

'Two one no fair,' Teppei grumbled, pounding the ground so haphazardly that they were all (the non-fliers anyway) finding it difficult to fight.

'Grumblebum no shake?'

That got everyone's attention, especially since the tremors suddenly halted and the boy looked over at the brunette female who had dove into the water and raised its level to a tsunami.

Even Katsuharu yelled out at that, but the girl was beyond caring. If she couldn't drown herself in the depths of the ocean, if it chose to deny her that one right, she'd drown everything else.

'Grumblebum bad Grumblebum,' the earthquake user wailed, starting to thump around haphazardly again.'

'Stop it you imbecile or do you want us all to drown?' the other yelled, as the group of Talents (of which they decided Kouichi was an honorary member of) simply looked at each other in bewilderment.

'Should we do something?' Takuya asked.'

'Like what?' Junpei retorted, scowling fiercely. 'Both you and I are useless. But…' He thought for a moment. 'Tomoki, ice up a barrier. Izumi, Kouichi, Kouji? Can you three blast the water?'

'I guess so,' Izumi replied, frowning. 'But why can't Takuya help?'

'We'll be blind from the smoke,' the eldest pointed out.

'Oh, right.'

She summoned up as strong a hurricane as she could manage, realising suddenly that it didn't seem to be taxing her strength at all. She knew the night would be a full moon, but was there something else she hadn't realised? Something significant…because the twins launched afterimages of light and darkness, a wolf and a lion respectively, but neither one of them appeared any more drained than she felt…although all three of them were straining from the sheer effort.

'We need more help,' Kouji managed to shout after they were pushed back and water started falling over the barrier of pressure they had made. Tomoki was busy with the water seeping through the bottom, and Junpei knew full well he couldn't risk thunder…otherwise he'd electrocute the girl controlling the waves, and possibly his friends as well. Especially Izumi, who had flown up and was now surrounded with water vapour.

'We'll have to take the fog,' Takuya muttered, sending fire to the top of the wave. It hit the water and burst into smoke, and as the water reduced, the mist became thick enough to cloud almost everything.

All four of them stumbled as the pressure against them suddenly vanished.

'Hey Izumi?' Takuya shouted. 'Blow the smoke away?'

'Gimme a-' She cut off with a cry as something hit her, knocking her into the water.

'Izu-'

'Move!' Kouichi interrupted, springing and knocking the fire user the ground as there was the rush of something flying over him. The next moment there was dim splashing, almost as if the waves had receded (and perhaps they had, or the water was simply withdrawing at command), and then prickles of dark vapour and red laser beams penetrating the white mist.

'Dammit,' Takuya coughed, spitting out sand. 'That's the second time I've almost got my neck cleaved off.' He paused, listening for anything else. He could hear the beating of wings…hopefully that was Izumi out of the water and working on the fog problem. There was the sound of someone blubbering…the earth user it sounded like. And he could still see the pair that were Chiaki and Kouichi, matching blast for blast as both attempted not to mortally wound the other. That restriction showed in the fighting, even if they couldn't see.

But where was the guy with the extendable fists? And Junpei and Tomoki and Kouji?

'Guys!' he shouted. 'Where are?'

He suddenly got pelted by a snow-ball, before the barrage diverted itself.

'Sorry,' Tomoki shouted. 'I thought you were-eep.' He ducked, and the warning gave the brunette enough time to duck as well.

Well, that accounted for Tomoki.

'Junpei! Kouji!'

'I'm right-what the hell?' Kouji broke himself off as there was the sound of something slamming into the ground.

'Your fault,' Teppei wailed.

'My fault what?' the other's tone was entirely befuddled, though there was enough platters in the sand to say he was dodging the body slams…if that was what they were.

'Give her back,' the earth-element screamed.

'Oi, he had nothing to do with it. Take this.'

'Are you sure that's a good idea?"

'Why not, he's made of mostly earth, and that doesn't really conduct electricity…unless you count ground polarisation and what not.'

And that was Junpei, and no-one was going to ask him how he managed to give such a long speech in the middle of a fight.

But where was the wood user? Unless he was the one with the projectiles.

He slowly realised something. Shouting to each other, the other knew where everyone was. But silent as he was, no-one had spotted him. Except when the projectiles whizzed through the air.

And because he hadn't moved since ducking, he found himself stuck once the smoke cleared. Tied down more specifically, by vines that had somehow risen out of the sand.

So were Junpei and Tomoki, the former who had been wrestling with the other kid to stop him from, by the look on his face, ripping Kouji up with his bare hands.

'I *pant* think *pant* it's a *pant* case *pant * of *pant* mistake- *pant* -en *pant* ident- *pant* -ity.'

Physically wresting had absolutely nothing to do with his power, and he may be fit, but he was sure as hell no sumo wrestler. The other on the other hand had the extra weight from his element and apparently a Talent-disposition to the art. And an advantage as the vines were both straining his movement and zapping his strength.

Kouji looked around and formed a scowl, summoning up his swords before slicing them through the vines.

Or attempting to. Takuya had easily burnt his ones away, and Tomoki had frozen his before they did any damage, but Kouji's light saber seemed to be having zero effect.

'What the heck?' he exclaimed, putting more strength and focus behind it as he tried not to slice his friend open.

'Watch yourself,' Junpei warned as Teppei charged again.

'Not so fast.' Suddenly, Izumi was there, doing about as much damage as an irritating wasp…and having largely the same effect.

Tomoki looked over to the water, where Chiaki was still parrying the other blow for blow, dodging in the air (or water) to duck the physical stabs from the knife the other had somehow acquired from a scratch to the cheek while sending water and vapour to parry the lasers. Neither gave the other time for a large-scale counter-attack, dancing their dance above, below or upon the water. Splashes continued as they vanished and resurfaced, but still they parried.

Out of the way from the other confusing why Izumi had left him to complicated when it was one on one with no outside interference.

Although, all of them could reach if need be. They were on the surface between the deep and shallow waters, at the place where the earth beneath sloped off into a sea crater. It wasn't too far from the shore they were on, but of course they were currently occupied as Tomoki resumed to wriggling out of his bonds.

Once he had crawled out, he looked for the other. Takuya had joined Izumi, and she seemed to really need the power balance. Kouji was still working on Junpei, who couldn't do anything without electrocuting them both. Chiaki and Kouichi were occupied between themselves; the female seemed hell bent on forcing the other underwater but apparently it wasn't easy to do without risking his death…ironically by the very fate he himself was denied.

But Katsuharu…

…

He had taken advantage of the confusion and buried himself underground. That had given him the advantage of being able to hear the others above and sending his fast-growing seeds up to tie them down. Teppei had stopped thumping around needlessly, which was good to say the least, and he could still hear Chiaki's cries of rage…which was neither here nor there.

It was a very complicated paradox. And truth be told, he was sick of it. He'd never really thought about it. Why should he? Everyone was an animal. Everyone fought for things they couldn't have. But it had only occurred to him when he watched the group of five (or six, depending on how you looked at it) that they fought like a team.

_They_ fought as a team, but not like one. Otherwise they wouldn't hinder each other. And yet, when they weren't fighting, they could almost be a family. A dysfunctional family to be sure, but a family nonetheless.

Suddenly, he found himself wondering why they had to destroy that. Why they couldn't make it work instead. After all, especially towards the beginning, all of them had been almost content…for a time before society reared its ugly head. There were times, scattered as they were. Sure, they were on the streets. No family, no support and freaky supernatural powers and appearances that made normal people loathe or fear them. But they had each other. And when they were alone, playing around on the beach or in the park amongst the trees…hadn't the world seemed like not such a bad place then?

Maybe if there had been more of that…

And he found himself wishing he still had his family. If the tree hadn't fallen on his house at ten and killed his parents and little sister…and he still didn't know whether it had been his fault or not. But if he had grown up with his loving accepting parents, as these people above him had done (and he had watched with jealousy burning)…maybe he'd fight to protect instead of to follow. Maybe he'd have something worth fighting for. Rather than following what he felt was his duty.

But…he suddenly wished it would all stop…or he could tie the world down and keep it there.

And wishing his vines wouldn't snap so easily when they ensnared the "son".

…

It was the sound of snapping vines that made Kouji look up.

'I thought they were on the same side?' he muttered, seeing the vines fly through the air and recede to the ground. For a moment he had thought he had succeeded in breaking the bonds apart, before he realised the origin had been elsewhere, and so had the target.

'Kouji, watch out,' Junpei warned again, looking down where new buds were blooming. Kouji cursed and jumped out of the way.

No-one could be entirely sure what happened next. When they tried to remember, it was in snapshots.

Another cyclone of sand and earth bloomed up. There was a splash. They were covered in sand raining down, heavy because each clump was waterlogged. Tomoki was shouting. Junpei's eyes widened. Then he was shouting too. The shouting attracted the pair in the water, and Kouichi was shouting too.

Chiaki's eyes were wide, triumphant. She was holding something gleaming in her hand. Izumi spun in the air, cupping her hands to warn the other…before snapping back as the sandstorm suddenly broke apart, sending both her and Takuya to the ground.

About the same time, Kouji blinked crazily, trying to hear or see something in the chaos. In the end, all he heard was a pained scream-his own- as something crashed straight into him, along with an explosive force that blasted everything between the two brothers.

And then he was flat on his back, seeing a swirl of red and black and yellow with every breath a pained chore. There was something tricking down the side of his mouth as he coughed, and coughed again…

And suddenly, he couldn't breathe at all. His eyes widened. Fear clutched him. Takuya clutched him too, mouthing something. He was upright suddenly, or maybe someone was just holding him in a sitting position. He felt the urge to cough again, the desperation, but he couldn't expand his lungs enough.

If he couldn't breathe, he couldn't live. He was going to die, right then and there. Somehow, the thought was both comforting and terrifying. At least he had done everything he had wanted to do. It wasn't like he had planned what he was going to do after university. He hadn't even planned on the high school yet.

The blurry images faded. There were several screams, one a shrill female one. All he recognised. All panicked. But there was one he didn't though he felt in his heart it was the one he knew best of all. But it was more than "panicked". Panicked didn't even stretch the surface of what that scream entailed.

Distantly, he could hear his heart thumping. Somehow, that seemed very important. It had to be. It had something to do with the scream, because his heart was screaming too, full of desperation

Then he couldn't hear it anymore. Nor could he feel the stabbing, the pained thumping. It was almost like he had been doused with ice water, and finally the chill was fading into hypothermia.

It blurrily occurred to him that he should probably move if that was the case. And apologize to his father and stepmother for leaving the mittens and jacket at home.

The last thing he saw was the sun that had just been starting to peak out from behind the clouds covered by a black shadow.

…

* * *

><p><em><strong>End of Chapter 10<strong>_

**A/N: **Kouichi's hair normally falls over his ears, so the ears went unnoticed. Tomoko probably saw them, but perhaps she saw no reason to mention them, or else she did it before he could understand and he didn't remember. It does seem like a moot point after everything though.

Vultures is actually a general term that includes eagles in its group. I know Velgmon is an eagle, but it's cool thinking of him as a vulture. Scavenger bird, eating off dead flesh. Suits the fic. They rarely attack healthy animals, but will/can kill the wounded or sick. Anyone see where I'm going with this?

And now you know how I'm going to finish this in twelve chapters. Roughly anyway. The ending might not be entirely predictable (I hope everyone doesn't get it right) but the structure's reasonable enough. After all, there's only so many options before requiring more/less chapters and/or a sequel.

Katsuharu's having second thoughts. Hehe. He's pretty much the sanest of the triad, and he hasn't had many lines.

That last scene will be done again in the next chapter, definitely from Kouichi's POV seeing as that part's instrumental, and maybe also from Takuya's. So it's not the be-all and end-all. As usual.

The next chapter by the way is called Rebirth of the Phoenix. Blow your minds away.


	11. Rebirth of the Phoenix

…

_**THE LION IN THE SKY**_

…

He had been elsewhere occupied, hence why he hadn't seen his brother fall. But he had felt it, much like the force of a sledge-hammer, and for the briefest moment he couldn't think about anything else. He hadn't even noticed the scream that escaped his lips. A purely reflexive action.

He found his vision swimming, fading…his skin peeling and moulting off his bones and flesh, the water hitting an indestructible waterproof layer. He knew, or rather, he feared what was happening, and he automatically held his breath, trying to tell his body to stop much like he would tell it to stop spinning once the rhythm became unconscious, but it seemed like his heart had completely separated from his body and mind. The latter two were dying. It was starting to smell like death already. The heart was beating, but oxygen wasn't travelling to the visceral organs: the brain, the lungs and the others that needed it to continue a sustained life. The heart thumped on inside his chest, completely separate to the heartbeats banging along in his ear, counting down to their finale. And he heard the last one, so long in coming he thought for a moment the other was already dead.

He used his last breath to scream (again). As loud and strongly as he could, the sound resonating across the water and the air. This wasn't only a scream of pain. It was of resistance. A scream to give him strength. To give others hope.

Then there was another thump, and he knew for sure. If only because he knew nothing after at all.

…

_**Chapter 11**_

_**Rebirth of the Phoenix**_

…

Takuya sat on his knees, frozen in shock. Both hands were gripping the shoulders of his best friend, frozen mid-shake. Wide brown eyes were staring into the blank blue, once sharp and defined and now nothing more than murky orbs reflecting nothing. The sparkle, the sharp pinpoint of light was gone. Never again would those eyes glare at him for some stupid statement that had escaped his mouth before he had had the chance to think it through. Never again would they fight over the remote or something equally stupid, clashing like hydrogen and oxygen. Never again would he even…blink…or do _anything_…

It was almost like his own heart had been doused in ice.

'Takuya!' Izumi screamed suddenly, and rather shrilly. 'Oh…'

He didn't want to look up. Really, he didn't. It was, in the end, only the desperation that laced the blonde's voice that forced his chin to lift, and with that carry the weight of his eyes…and everything else, with it.

For a moment, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be looking at.

Then another scream resonated, this time across the water, before the body itself swallowed the two Talents that had danced upon it.

Izumi gave the brunette a fleeing look, green eyes shining and trembling in their effort to remain steady, before she turned and flew across the shore.

He didn't like what else those eyes were showing.

…

Water flew under her...or rather, she flew above the body that stretched below her. It seemed far longer somehow how, or perhaps the beat of her wings had dulled with shock. Half of her was still expecting Kouji to spring up, crushing and going all martial arts on the lump of fat who didn't even flinch when Junpei suddenly hit him with enough electricity to fry a bull, crying out something incoherently. That's what it looked like anyway; the yellow light reflected into her eyes from the water surface.

She felt like crying out too, but her lungs felt frozen. It was a miracle she hadn't plummeted from the air, but the urge to get away from one spot and towards another were just too strong. After all, two others had just gone under, one whom she could have called a friend, and neither of them had resurfaced.

She reached the spot, where there were slight bubbles floating on the film of water and two dark shadows floating beneath.

Almost at the exact moment she halted in the air, one of them surfaced.

And she gasped in shock.

The brunette, Chiaki's, braided hair had somehow come undone, billowing around her like a spread out spider's web, simply without that which held it in its shape. What little skin the other could see (seeing as she was face down in the water) was flesh-belly pale, but otherwise normal. The first time she had seen her skin as normal. The fins were gone too. She looked just like a normal teenager floating there…except for the blood that was starting to seep out from under her.

The flyer plunged down and quickly yanked the other's head out of the water. She had acted entirely on instinct there; out of control or not, every human deserved the chance to live…but that was before she noticed the burns in the chest-area, and the bits of visceral organs eroded.

She couldn't help but gag. And if they had stopped for some afternoon tea, she'd be throwing it up right about then.

They'd _never_ watched anyone die. Ever. Even after all the fighting they got into. No-one had ever been killed. Crazy, deranged…but never dead.

And now there were possibly three. Possibly four she realised, noting Kouichi hadn't surfaced yet.

It felt like an age, but it had been less than three minutes. She hoped. Still, she readied herself for the dive…

…and that's when she noticed the shadow changing underwater.

She hesitated, hovering in the air…and suddenly the water came flying up. And then she was flying. Flying up without a single flap of her feathered wings, totally waterlogged.

Perhaps it hadn't been too wise switching to that, but she had needed the power against the earth element.

And then she froze in the air for a moment, feeling the warmth of something on her back…

…and then she was pitching down.

Straight into darkness.

…

It was the shrill scream that captured Junpei's attention. He'd sunk to his knees, somehow or other free from the binds that had held him down…too late. He'd released as much electricity as he could, but it was only after the terrible scream, the falling body, and the light that had flew across the water at, well, at the speed of light. Three hundred and forty-three metres per meant it had taken far less than that; the distance was nowhere near three hundred and forty-three metres. It was probably a maximum of ten metres, and that was an extremely crude estimate.

Losing so much electricity in such a short time left his mind reeling and his body feeling quite lethargic. But the scream had pierced through that haze, and he looked up to find Izumi falling into a black hole that had suddenly appeared below her.

It was pure reflex that made his wings shoot out, perfectly functional. It was pure reflex that made him fly and catch her mere millimetres from the edge of the water. Neither one of them considered giving thanks that there was no suction that would pull them both under as well.

His eyes widened slightly as he caught sight of the body drifting a metre or so away from them through the spray, pushed away by each ripple of water that came from the centre. Almost like a shockwave, or better yet a hurricane, shoving everything away from the eye.

'Dead!' Izumi screamed in his ear over the torrents of water. 'Let's leave!'

He did so almost unconsciously, barely aware his insectoid wings weren't struggling under the weight of the female and her own water-logged pair. For her part, it hadn't occurred to her with withdraw them. Her head was still reeling, and she promptly through up as her hands and knees touched solid ground before it finally occurred to her to get rid of the excess baggage.

Then she made a sound somewhere between a cough and a sob, mumbling something incoherent.

'What's going on?' she managed finally. 'I tried to get Kouichi-kun, and-'

It suddenly hit her.

'_Once my heart is gone, it's over. He was safe so long as no-one knew. But if someone hears about, they'll kill him. And when he's dead they'll get exactly what they want.'_

'Come on Kouichi!' she shouted at the top of her lungs, ignoring Japanese protocol (though she had a far from perfect grasp to begin with and unintentionally portrayed a little more of an informal attitude than she should in all situations). 'Fight it! You have your own heart! It doesn't matter if you weren't born with it! And think about your brother! Goddammit, you know Kouji wouldn't want this!'

'There's no point.' It was Katsuharu, having crawled out of the haven that was no longer safe when the first inhumane screech echoed. Tomoki, on the ground a few feet away, rocked and plugged up his ears, looking between Takuya and Kouji as if half expecting the other to just spring up again. 'They're dead, they're both dead, and now the spirit who's heart was implanted is going to destroy us all in its vengeance. A beast that knows no reason, no mercy, nothing save hunger and if he hadn't been under so long…but he's a characteristic and bird, but no gills. He can't breathe underwater.'

'How would you know that?' Izumi shrieked at him, hair hanging limp around her. 'You don't know them at all!'

'That's not true,' the other said emotionlessly. 'I know…Kouichi…better than you do. I've crossed him more times than the days you've spent with him. And I know Chiaki, who dedicated her entire life, far before the Talent began eating away at her sanity, better than anyone in the world. Even her own father who was the one who condemned is all to this. And she knew it all, because _he_ told her. The vulture, the bird of prey that fed of the sick and dead, to destroy a world that itself was a sickness to bring about a new world where such sickness would not the bird of death . You can't kill it. I don't know what drove him to it; there was little love between them, if anything. Chiaki followed her father's legacy for the sole reason that she hated him and what he'd done to her with every fibre of her being, and to destroy it all the only way she could. She couldn't wait for a cure, you see.'

The girl breathed hard, shoulders heaving, but she calmed slowly. The irrational urge to claw him into shreds did in any case.

'Why..?' she asked.

'Why I chose the same path?' There was a shrug. 'Truth be told, I just didn't know any better. But…' He looked out to the sea, where the clouds were swirling viciously, about to bring the ragnarokupon the earth. 'I can't stand this anymore. I'll wait forever, if there's no more fighting.'

Junpei went over to Tomoki as the other said that. The youngest of them all had pretty much said the same thing, and yet he'd fought to the end, every time they'd needed him. They'd fought to stop fighting, but they'd fought still. The entire paradox had brought them to this moment. Death for for death.

It hadn't occurred to any of them to prepare for another fight. Or to flee. They were all somewhat numb. Takuya still clutched the body of his best friend. Katsuharu stared out into the sea for the body of _his_, but no-one could think of retrieving it now. The sea had claimed her forever, her final resting place after she had claimed its powers for years on end until it had consumed her mind. Izumi just stayed on her knees, looking up to the clouds and water she had failed to master.

Perhaps she could have saved him.

'_Perhaps if he hadn't been under so long…but he's a human. Lion characteristic and bird, but no gills. He can't breathe underwater.'_

Perhaps…

The sea exploded.

…

Tsubokura looked out the window at the sky. The clouds had ominously darkened, spread. The rain had stopped, but the sun wasn't showing. A black veil covered the entire sky, has if night had come too early.

It seemed unnatural.

He put down his cup and reached for the communicator, but he received no answer no matter who he called. The database he had been examining was minimised as he pulled the satellite image back onto the screen.

There was a muddled dot. They were too far out of range.

He knew they could take care of themselves. That he was more a liability than a help in those sorts of situations. But something didn't bode well at all.

He picked up the phone, quick-dialling the other connection in the building. 'Shiohi,' he said. 'I'm going after them.'

'I'm nearly there,' was the distracted reply.

'Keep at it. I don't think it can come fast enough.'

He didn't even realise how true those words were till a later stage.

…

Not all of them moved when the sea exploded for the first time. The shockwave was enough to blast Junpei and Izumi back, and Tomoki had automatically retreated a little himself. Katsuharu had moved too, if only to shield the body of his other friend, whose mind had so early regressed into something of a child, someone who had completely obsessed over the "mother" or "older sister" figure, from the spray. Takuya hadn't moved at all though. They'd thought, once they regrouped around him, that he hadn't even noticed. His eyes looked strangely blank, unseeing…

But then he muttered something, and they knew they had been wrong.

'What's the point?' he muttered. 'We couldn't even save one life. And look at all the damage. How are we going to save the entire world?'

They looked. Every single one of them. Despite the surface being covered with sand, it was broken and cracked and waterlogged. The pier some distance away had splintered entirely, sharp ragged edges pointing to the sky. The rocks on the other side had been broken apart and cast under water, leaving ugly gaping holes. Two bodies lay, one burnt and the other broken and partially covered in blood. A third drifted on the water, further and further away. And there was a fourth casualty, whose body had either changed or been completely devoured by the spirit tied to the very heard that had kept him alive fourteen years past his time.

It could have been a lot worse, if it had been an inhabited area, with buildings and roads and other people.

It was going to be a lot worse, once the bird spread its wing and soared.

Right now it hovered above the churning sea, slick with the water dripping off its oily wings and body, larger than life and utterly black…except for the green eyes beneath closed lids.

…

He panted up the hill to the beach, having parked rather haphazardly below. No doubt he'd incur a fine at some stage for such recklessness, but he'd spotted the figure, the vulture, from far away, and every fibre of his being screamed with urgency. Even if he was going to be completely useless once he got there.

But once he stood on flat land, he saw the situation in its entirety.

…

'We have to…' Junpei began, a little weakly, but Takuya just shook his head, water droplets flying.

'How?' He sounded so pathetic, but none of them could help it. Somehow, the chaos before them seemed a little inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Rather out of reach. Hopeless. They couldn't fight five on three. How where five of them going to stop the vulture of death itself?

It wasn't any of them that answered.

'The same way you always do,' Tsubokura's voice said. 'You don't give up. You keep trying, fighting for the world and the people you love.'

His shadow covered the other as he knelt down and closed Kouji's eyes, finally breaking their spell.

'I know it looks hopeless,' the man continued over the roars that echoed over the water. 'But I don't recall _ever_ seeing you give up at anything. You've always fought to the end, even when it's only sheer courage (or idiocy he would normally say) that keeps you going. Are you seriously going to give up here because of a minor setback?'

'It's not a minor setback!' the brunette shouted. 'People are _dead_!'

'And more people are going to die if you lot can't stop him,' Tsubokura replied, closing his eyes. 'Lots and lots of people. Millions…no, billions of people. Including your family_and _the rest of your friends. Can you live with that?'

'But-' He lowered his eyes again, looking at the strained face that would, in a few hours, set permanently in that expression.

Tsubokura sighed in annoyance, running a hand through his hair before looking at the other teenagers…and child. All of them were in, more or less, the same sort of condition. Dejected. Emptied of hope. But still looking, still listening, still searching…

They weren't supposed to be adults. _They_, Shiohi and himself, should avoided this exact scenario. Hell, they'd promised their parents they would, and now look at the world…

Then there was a horrifying screech and blackness descended upon them as the bird finally stretched its wings.

The next moment, they were staring in shock at the crater where the sea had once stretched, now smoking where some sort of green acid ate into the earth.

Izumi stifled another gasp, almost choking as she covered her mouth with both hands. Tomoki squeezed both eyes shut, covering them. Junpei followed suit. Katsuharu almost bit his lower lip off; how could someone have ever desired something so horrible? How could _he_ have ever desired something so horrible?

Takuya also squeezed his eyes shut, but Kouji's weight was still on his arms. Kouji didn't want this. Okay, he had flippantly thrown off the other's concern for this very possibility, but he knew for a fact the other had not ever wanted to die, no matter how bleak his outlook ever got. More so when there were people he'd be leaving behind, and he had just started getting along with his step-mother, just found a brother…heck, his dog was about to give birth any day now too. He was sure Kouichi didn't want it too. Why else would he have fought against it, despite the pain it brought. Why else had he tried to run away from his own family, the people he'd wanted more than anything in the world, once he had found them, except to protect them? But it wasn't to be. One fateful meeting, where all and none of them could be blamed, had brought this upon them. If he had just killed the brunette girl when they had first crossed paths, before she had spread the word and gathered a bit of a following, then perhaps it wouldn't have come to this.

But how did they know that wouldn't have just delayed it?

The cure was almost there. They could have saved him.

But now there were four people, all of which had deserved the chance to live, were dead.

And they, and the whole world, would follow if they didn't do something.

The shadow was spreading again, devouring more of the sea bed, evaporating the water that poured in from the deeper reaches…

Soon, it would reach land.

He opened his eyes, staring straight into Izumi's who had turned back at that moment. Tomoki opened his eyes as well, staring at Junpei, who opened his and stared back, then at Katsuharu in an almost questioning form.

The next moment, they had acted as one, and the dark dome rising up from the water, it was met by a fiery wall. Wind fanned the flame while leaf and petal litter fuelled it, making it three, or perhaps four, times as powerful as it normally was. Tomoki was sucking out the coldness of the air, causing the heat and flame to rise, and Junpei was sending as much electricity as he could manage through the air, ionising it, fuelling it further while keeping the more useless (in terms of flame fanning) towards them as a barrier of sorts.

The dark dome retreated, before rising again with a vengeance and swallowing the fiery barrier.

'Oh no,' Izumi groaned. 'It took our best shot.'

The vulture screeched again, dipping its wing into the small pool of water that was starting to reform. A mighty flap of the wings caused the water to spray outwards as he…it, rose into the sky.

Takuya looked at the boy in his arms, before meeting Tsubokura's gaze. Wordlessly, the other nodded and took the load, allowing the brunette to stand and take a stand forward.

'No it hasn't,' he said decisively. 'We'll come up with something better. We have to.'

Because billions of people were going to die. And it would any sacrifice anyone had ever given completely useless.

'We have to,' they all repeated, each for a different reason. But while their reasons differed, their goals were the same.

Save the world…in a nutshell.

…

_**End of Chapter 11**_

**A/N: **The spaces again. I think it's the uni computer.

I love spiders. Had a pet one a few times, but my Mum put them in the garden. Then lectured me about how Redbacks were poisonous. Much like Kouichi in the second chapter of Grey Mist. I was pretty small then. Hence why all the spider references. Of course, there is a more sublime reason. Anyone guess what? Not particularly important if you can't.

Ragnarok is sort of like the rage of the Gods. Its use in this is rather metaphorical.

There sure was a lot of automatic/reflexive action in this chapter. Can't really blame them. Four deaths in the space of a few minutes.

I was going to put the rest of the fight into this chapter too, but changed my mind. Goes better in the next one.

It's not over yet. The last chapter's an actual chapter and not an epilogue, and it's also why the story's called what it's called.

Stay tuned till the conclusion next Tuesday.


	12. The Lion in the Sky

…

_**THE LION IN THE SKY**_

…

Shiohi bit her lip, looking at the latest results. It hadn't quite eradicated the virus. It needed just a bit more…

It felt like a pandemic. Perhaps it was, because in such emergencies, the drugs were only tested for immediate effect. For all they knew, if she did succeed in creating a "cure" and administering it, the mutation, and the powers and deformities and degradation it brought about, could all resurface at a later date. Days, months, even years…

But Katashi had sounded so urgent.

It didn't matter. They needed an immediate effect.

She tossed the results aside and started with a new culture.

…

_**Chapter 12**_

_**The Lion in the Sky**_

…

They'd almost backed onto the highway, which was a very bad sign. The beach had turned into a cliff…or rather, the edge near the highway had turned into a cliff-face. The rest of it was nothing save a pile of decomposed matter lying deep under the ocean floor.

Luckily, the ocean wasn't so easily dominated, as even after been drained of scores of litres of water, it still flowed to fill the gap. That might even be advantageous, Tsubokura mused to himself, watching the water crawling further inwards. It meant some of the lower-lying islands would survive for a few more years with the Global Warming effects and the polar ice caps melting and all. In fact, it was the only good thing about this whole mess…and apparently the bird had something against the water, which could only be an added bonus.

The land was still pretty bad off though. And so were the remaining Talents, having come up with absolutely nothing to stop the vulture. Every attack or combination they'd thrown hadn't even fazed the bird. And they were only marginally succeeding in keeping those domes that disintegrated everything within them at bay.

'Is it just me?' Junpei asked from the air, sending another burst of electricity and wondering why he wasn't falling from the sky in exhaustion. 'Or are those dome thingimabubs getting bigger?'

They actually were getting bigger.

'Oh no,' Katsuharu groaned. 'We are dead meat.'

'Maybe you don't have a family, or friends,' Takuya snapped with another burst of fire. 'But we do. And we care what happened to them. And the rest of the world.

'I do have friends,' the plant-user pointed out, attempting another leaf cyclone. 'They're dead too.'

He didn't say "your friend killed them". After all, he didn't think it was entirely the kid's fault. After all, the heart was dead. And he hadn't asked to wind up as the world-destroyer. In fact, he'd done quite a good job _not_ doing that for the most part, if one chose to ignore the messy end.

And Tsubokura was standing on the highway with two bodies safe in the car. You couldn't call either a murder really, in the end. And the others were trying not to think about that…and doing a rather good job for the most part. Unfortunately, the downside was they were getting their butts kicked. Figuratively of course.

However, it was quite distracting. And quite pressing.

Izumi's gales hit the dome and were absorbed.

'_Kuso_,' she cursed in Japanese…surprisingly. Normally she cursed in Italian. '_Merda_. It's not working.'

Electricity surged through a blast of ice, cutting a small hole through the dome which immediately sealed up.

'Hold on.' That was Katsuharu, withdrawing his vines again. They just weren't piercing through. 'Do that again.'

Junpei and Tomoki immediately followed the request, and this time he managed to get his vines through.

Only, they weren't doing a whole lot better. Tomoki caught on though, climbing onto the nearest vine and scurrying down its length up to the hole, icing it before it closed completely and leaving a small hole inside.

'I can't get much ice in,' he declared.

'No problem.' Junpei, Izumi and Takuya had flown up. 'Leave it to us.'

'Hang on,' Izumi cried as the other prepared another electric charge. 'What exactly are we doing?'

'We're creating a bomb.'

'What?'

'We don't have a choice,' Takuya pointed out. 'We can't get close enough to take him down, so we'll have to blow up…how?'

'We have to blow up the entire air space, using the domes to our advantage by changing the air composition,' the electricity-user explained. 'Between your air control Izumi Takuya's fire, and my electricity, we should generate enough force to rival a small-scale bomb. The domes will keep the energy inside, and even may absorb it, but so long as it hits where it's supposed to…'

The blonde took a deep breath. _That's not a human_, she had to remind herself. _The human's dead. Drowned. That's just a monster, man-made and about to destroy your entire world._

Then something occurred to her.

'Why hasn't it destroyed everything yet?'

The clouds in the sky rumbled in answer.

'Maybe because the night hasn't fallen yet,' Junpei theorised, gritting his teeth. 'We're all more powerful when the moon comes out. And it's a full moon tonight.'

'So you're basically we've got till sun-down before the whole world's completely toast.' Takuya took a deep breath, before summoning fire to his fists. 'Let's get this over with.' There was a pause. 'And under no circumstances is _anyone_ telling Shinya I tried to cook a bird, you guys got that?'

It was a mark of how bad the situation was that they both burst out laughing.

…

Tsubokura watched the makeshaft bomb detonate. He watched the domes fall. He watched the Talents cheer…and he watched the particles of darkness floating in the sky regenerate.

'Impossible,' he breathed.

But it was true. The vulture of death was undying. Regenerating in front of their very eyes.

…

…

A soft glow caught his attention, and he diverted his eyes slightly to stare at the contents within his car…or more specifically the boy he had carefully laid in the back seat.

Kouji was just how he had left him, eyes closed, blood drying on his chest area where the bones had been smashed in.

The only difference was that area seemed to be glowing.

Now, Tsubokura didn't believe in miracles. He was an adult. He worked very closely with a medical scientist. The only reason he himself was _not_ a scientist was because he had found IT more interesting. Never had he dreamed twenty-six years ago he'd be standing where he was today.

So it didn't seem all that odd to hold his breath in the hopes that by some magical and divine power, the other was going to heal and come alive again. That would solve everything…but if Shiohi couldn't get a cure made, it would only be a temporary fix. Perhaps it was better to fight it young. They had a better chance at winning. Even after seeing death in front of their noses, they could fight when someone lit a flame under their feet…and struck the match.

Maybe he was a wet matchstick, but he had done his job.

But he was wrong. There was no miracle coming. The light faded, leaving nothing changed.

Save a shriek resonating in the empty space.

And then the bird was souring through the disintegrated roof of his car, screaming and convulsing in the air.

…

It hadn't worked. Well, it had. But they hadn't expected the entire body to regenerate. And even if they had, they hadn't been expecting it to regenerate so far away from them.

They hadn't expected it to regenerate almost on top of two dead bodies…but it made some degree of sense. After all, all animals were attracted to food sources, and the primary food source for vultures were corpses. They were scavengers after all.

That did not however explain the pained shrieks or the convulsing.

Nor did it explain why light was starting to burst through clouds.

'Guys,' Junpei said quietly. 'The sun's beginning to set.'

'Well…shit.' Takuya muttered. 'That didn't work.'

'Then we'll come up with something better,' Tomoki said. 'There's got to be something he's tied to right. Some reason why he regenerates? If we destroy that…'

'We're not in fairytales Tomoki,' the eldest of their group snapped, rubbing his head. 'Then again, no-one ever mentioned this stuff happening in real life.'

By that time, Tsubokura had abandoned his car and decided that joining them would be safer than heading into town. In any case, he wouldn't make it far on foot, and being on his lonesome, he would be an easy target. There was no way any of them would be able to watch the bird gulp up the body of two human children though.

Luckily, it appeared they wouldn't have to, as the vulture was still struggling with something.

'If you're going to do something, do it now!'

'Like what? We already blew him up,' Takuya retorted. 'But hearts can't beat forever. There must have been some way to…'

His voice trailed off, watching the shrieking vulture as light suddenly exploded from his third eye.

'Err…what's happening?' A pause. 'Oh great.'

The domes were starting to rise again.

…

The Japanese were one of the people that cremated their dead, leaving behind nothing but bones and ash for funeral. Of course, that wasn't to say _all_ Japanese cremated their dead, but that was what occurred at a typical Japanese funeral. Bones weren't so easily burnt though; they were buried. Flesh burnt pretty easily, as did all the internal liquids, the various organs, and all the other systems.

The heart burnt as well. And when that was done, there was no turning back. No undead, because even they had hearts, albeit still ones.

Once the ashes returned to the earth, they would stay there. Forever.

Maybe that was the only way to end it all.

…

The readied themselves for a fight again, but by that point they could feel their energy and power draining. They had to win fast. They were on a time limit by two fronts, their own capabilities and the moon showing its face. Because it was too much to hope that their power will increase enough to be able to combat death at its full potential.

Never had any of them thought they'd be fighting _death_ of all things head on. But maybe it wasn't death. Perhaps Armageddon was a better word.

They were about to launch another assortment of attacks to blast the domes when Tsubokura stopped them.

'You have an idea?' Tomoki asked eagerly.

'Yes,' the older man replied. 'But none of you are going to like it.'

He had considered not mentioning the details, but in the end had decided against it. True it would have been easier in the short run, and that was the more pressing one now, but the reactions after…

They really wouldn't be children then.

To top it off, he wasn't even sure of what he had seen.

So he didn't elaborate. Not then.

…

When a soldier, or someone similar, died on sea they gave a special type of burial. Casting off, letting the water claim the body for itself, sinking into the depths and defying the laws of gravity.

The funeral rites were rapidly done in war. The carcasses were piled up and burnt. There was little time for prayer, except what came after with the survivors. And their friends and family, and nameless people paying their wishes to people they had never met. People whose names they didn't even know.

In some circumstances, the funeral rites were altered.

It looked like this was one of those circumstances.

…

It was the beak dipping that did it.

The vulture was making absolutely no sense whatsoever. The domes followed no pattern, simply detonating at random. The body itself still shrieked as if in constant pain, flying upwards and away from the car and the two bodies as if he couldn't stand to be near them…

And then suddenly he was diving forward, about to bury his beak into the two inhabitants.

That was what did it.

Ice and thunder shot at the bird, who screeched in mid air and grinded to a halt as his wing and half his chest was seared off. As the darkness began to repair it, something began to glow in the backseat. Kouji, they realised slowly. Or more specifically his chest.

The bird screeched in pain again, and hurtled downwards. Apparently it had decided the glow was the source of its pain. And it must go.

Vines suddenly erupted, tearing at the wings and slowing the bird down. It was a show of how single-minded the other was that it made no move to combat its assailants, simply flying forward whenever it had the means to do so. Sooner or later his beak would have the heart between it, and with a ferocious snap, it would be gone. Dissolved. Destroyed.

'Cremate them,' Tsubokura said slowly. Somehow it sounded better than "burn them". 'That bird's not going to stop for anything.'

It roared again, as if to validate that.

Takuya and Izumi exchanged glances, before nodding slowly. It wasn't something either of them particularly wanted to do, but right then it seemed either that or watch the body of one of their best friends disappear into the stomach of a monster. And they'd have to watch the body burn in any case. Perhaps it would be more bearable like this.

The fanned flames easily engulfed the car, and the fuel helped it spread. Within a minute, the entire vehicle exploded, by which time the vulture had its beak halfway through the hood.

The entire contraption, bird and all, soon became engulfed in flames.

They all waited, breaths held…but it didn't regenerate.

…

Izumi sunk to her knees, but the others remained standing, though most of them felt the urge to follow in the female's suit. Perhaps it was manly pride that kept them from collapsing. Or perhaps it was just the differences in character showing up.

Takuya was just staring at the ash. He'd been largely responsible for the fire, but he knew in his heart it was the way things had to go. It still felt horrible, even if all he had done was cremate a dead friend, a person he didn't know all too well, and a vulture that should have been long dead.

But the bones and scraps of metal…

He stifled a gasp as green smoke began to rise.

…

It was the same stuff that had originally caused the virus. He was sure of it. Perhaps that was why he panicked. Why he yelled.

'Stop it!'

The group reacted instantly. Winds divided the air into two distinct phases separated by a barrier, helped along with ice and electricity. Aromas shot out from the earth, carrying with them flame.

The green vapour ravelled around the vine and surged onward. Straight through the barrier. Straight through the vine. Straight through empty space where no matter or even light should be able to travel through.

Before they could panic, or come up with something else to combat it, before Tsubokura could speed-dial Doctor Ryuusui in the hopes she knew something that could help them, the moon suddenly appeared in the sky as the clouds moved.

For a moment, time froze.

And then stars began to appear as the clouds further retreated. For a moment, they looked simply like little pinnacles in the sky, but then they began to connect. There was a wolf, pawing towards the earth. A lion, turning its head away from the sky.

And then light was pouring down. Not sunlight but the gentle light that the night brought. A lion was literally leaping upon the green smoke, suppressing it was the wolf prowled below, biting into its base.

They watched in awe as the smoke literally shrieked, then quelled under the two beings of light.

And then it was gone. And it was just the pair, turning over to them. Each with blue eyes that were oh so familiar. Each with a smile on their face, full of thankfulness…and love.

And then they were just light, spreading across the ground, and sparkling in the sky beside the moon.

…

The heart was truly an amazing organ. Some even believed it to have mythical or divine attributes.

Very few however denied it had a link to the soul. Perhaps that was why it was better for them to burn into nothingness once they were dead. That way, the soul was freed…forever.

But when it had no earthy ties, where did it go?

…

And then, just like that, it was over. No-one could quite believe it. For about an hour they just stood there, waiting for something to rise from the ashes. But nothing came. The sun went down. The clouds parted. The moon rose, bathing the fractured highway and new cliff formation with its light.

It would take a lot of cleaning up to make it easy on the eyes to look at again.

The stars sparked in the sky. The lion was still there, plain as day, but the wolf had vanished. The face faced westward, ready to greet the God of the Sun when it next came.

And they knew it would come.

They would have stood longer, but the phone rang. The conversation was brief, and the message even more so. A single statement, bringing the final chapter to a close.

'The cure's ready.'

And so quietly and with heavy hearts, they began the long trek back into town, the stars guiding their path and the full moon smiling from the sky.

The lion smiled too, but it was a smile purely for them. And if they looked closely, they would have seen the shadow of a wolf's smirk on the face turning further west.

…

_**End of Chapter 12**_

**A/N:** And that's the end of the story…and also where the title comes from. The lion is actually a real constellation. It's called Leo, one of the signs of the Zodiac. You find it if you type "The Lion in the Sky" into Google. Although Kura'Baee brought up a good point I actually hadn't even realised, ie. Kouichi having both lion and bird as a part of his mutated Talent. Well, there you go. Even titles can be interpreted in different ways.

Man, it's so hard to write fighting scenes how they show up in the little VCR player in my head.

And yeah, the twins are dead. Again. Come on, how many of you saw that coming?

Now that I think about it, how many times have I _saved_ them? Not a rhetorical question. Seriously, does anyone remember?

There's a reason there's no epilogue. Once everything dies down, there's going to be a lot of emotion involved. Depending on the reader, the perception of that might differ. I'll leave it up to you…basically because that's a really tough chapter to write. And it's not really a part of the story. I never intended it to be. Twelve chapters…for once it stuck with the original plan.

Ciao next fic. And thanks for reading. :) Next Tuesday will be the first of a three-shot called Turning Towards Light…only because it bugged me till it was written. You know how fics are…


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